Democrats demand interviews with officials pushed out of Pentagon over Signal

Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee are asking a trio of Pentagon officials forced out in the wake of a leak investigation to sit for questioning about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of Signal to discuss sensitive information.

The request asked for transcribed interviews with Dan Caldwell, Colin Carroll, and Darin Selnick, who have protested being booted from the department, as well as two other Hegseth aides who have resigned in recent days.

“Because of your senior role in the Office of the Secretary and your participation in at least one Signal chat with Secretary Hegseth during your tenure at the Department of Defense, as well as the fact that you were recently placed on leave from the Department following an internal investigation into unauthorized leaks, we require your participation in a transcribed interview to examine the extent of this concerning incident and other potentially reckless disclosures of highly sensitive national security information,” Rep. Gerry Connolly (Va.), the top Democrat on the panel, wrote to the men in a letter.

The investigation from Oversight Democrats comes after reports about a second Signal group chat that discussed a pending strike on Houthi targets in Yemen. The second chat was started by Hegseth, who shared details about the attack with his wife, brother, and personal lawyer.

Caldwell and Selnick were reportedly also on the chat as Hegseth shared the details about military operations with others outside the Pentagon.

Caldwell, Hegseth’s former senior adviser, Selnick, the former deputy chief of staff and Carroll, chief of staff to deputy secretary of Defense Steve A. Feinberg, were all fired less than two weeks ago, days after being put on leave as part of a Defense Department probe into alleged leaks at the agency that began in March. 

In a joint statement, the trio said they were “incredibly disappointed” by the way their tenure at the department ended and claimed “unnamed Pentagon officials have slandered our character with baseless attacks on our way out the door.” 

Connolly — who announced Monday he will "soon" be stepping down from his position as Oversight ranking member but has not yet done so — also sent letters to Joe Kasper, Hegseth’s former chief of staff who quit his post in recent days, and John Ullyot, a former spokesperson for the department, who resigned earlier this month.

In each letter, the panel said it believed the men would have insight into Hegseth’s signal practices.

“The Committee has reason to believe that you have knowledge concerning the inappropriate and potentially unlawful dissemination of highly sensitive and/or classified national security information on Signal or other messaging applications or platforms, the manner in which senior government officials and other government personnel have used Signal or other such applications or platforms to conduct official government communications, the extent to which federal officials and personnel may have engaged in improper use of their personal devices to participate in communications concerning official government business or matters of national security, and the deliberate dissemination of sensitive and/or classified information to individuals unauthorized to access, possess, or receive such information,” the letter reads.

The Pentagon declined to comment Tuesday, while Ullyot and Carroll did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Ullyot has been critical of Hegeth’s leadership since his resignation, penning an op-ed in Politico complaining of disarray, dysfunction, and distraction under the new secretary’s leadership.

“Even strong backers of the secretary like me must admit: The last month has been a full-blown meltdown at the Pentagon — and it’s becoming a real problem for the administration,” Ullyot wrote, describing “the Month from Hell.”

Of the men pushed out amid the leak probe, Caldwell has refuted that any disclosures played a role in his dismissal.

Caldwell said during an interview with Tucker Carlson last week that his foreign policy views, particularly on the Middle East, played a role in his ouster from the Pentagon. 

“And of course, I have some views about the role of America in the world, you know, as we discussed, little controversial. All of us in our ways threatened really established interests,” said Caldwell, who worked at Concerned Veterans for America, a nonprofit that was headed by Hegseth. 

Over the weekend, Carroll shared more about his time at the Defense Department and argued Hegseth has been obsessed and preoccupied with leaks following the revelation of the first Signal chat, which became public when The Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg said he had been inadvertently included on it. 

"I think it kind of consumed the team a little bit," Carroll said on “The Megyn Kelly Show.”

"If you look at a pie chart of the secretary's day, at this point, 50 percent of it is probably a leak investigation," he said.

Amid the increasing turmoil, the Pentagon announced Hegseth’s three new advisers last week. Those include Col. Ricky Buria, an ex-junior military assistant, former Defense Department “special assistant" Patrick Weaver and Justin Fulcher, a Department of Government Efficiency adviser placed at the Pentagon. 

Trump said during an interview with The Atlantic published Monday that Hegseth is going to “get it together.” 

“I had a talk with him, a positive talk, but I had a talk with him,” the president said.