WASHINGTON >> The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, led by Tulsi Gabbard, has hired Dan Caldwell, a former top Pentagon aide who was fired by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after being publicly accused of leaking classified information, according to an administration official and others familiar with the move.
In his new position under Gabbard, Caldwell will serve as an adviser to senior intelligence officials responsible for coordinating the work of 18 federal intelligence agencies and drafting the president’s daily intelligence briefing.
His hiring signals the end of the messy and high-profile investigation that began last April when Caldwell and two other defense officials were escorted out of the Pentagon by security guards and publicly castigated by Hegseth.
Hegseth promised a full investigation and suggested, without offering proof, that the Pentagon had already uncovered evidence of their guilt.
“Once a leaker, always a leaker. Often a leaker,” Hegseth said of the three in a Fox News interview last April.
“If those people are exonerated, fantastic,” Hegseth added. “We don’t think, based on what we understand, that it’s going to be a good day for a number of those individuals because of what was found in the investigation.”
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Nearly a year later, that investigation has turned up no proof that Caldwell or the other two Trump administration officials — Colin Carroll and Darin Selnick — committed any wrongdoing.
The Pentagon declined to comment on Caldwell’s hiring or the inquiry by the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations, which appears to have concluded but has not been publicly released. An administration official said Caldwell was cleared.
In a statement, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — the agency headed by Gabbard — said new employees go through an extensive background review, “including record checks and personal interviews, with a trained official to ensure the individual is trustworthy and does not pose a threat to national security.”
Hegseth leveled the accusations against the three just weeks after he disclosed sensitive information about a forthcoming attack on Yemen in a Signal text chain that included a reporter from The Atlantic. Hegseth also shared information about the strikes in a second Signal group chat that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer.
In December, the Defense Department’s inspector general’s office concluded that Hegseth “did not comply” with the Pentagon’s policies when he sent the sensitive information about the strikes over the private messaging app.
Caldwell declined to comment on his new position or the investigation. Selnick, who worked as Hegseth’s deputy chief of staff, denied any wrongdoing.
“It has been clear from the beginning that the allegations against the three of us from April 2025 were false and that we were never targets of any investigation,” he said in a statement. “I have moved on from all of this, strongly support President Donald Trump and look forward to the investigation report becoming public.”
Carroll, the former chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen A. Feinberg, is working in the defense industry and did not reply to a request for comment.
Caldwell, a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq, began working for Hegseth in 2012 at Concerned Veterans for America, which promoted conservative policies to support veterans and their families. At the Pentagon, he advised Hegseth on policy matters and accompanied him to some of his meetings with foreign leaders.
Caldwell has been a prominent voice championing a restrained foreign policy that aims to keep the U.S. military out of open-ended military conflicts, especially in the Middle East. In an interview with the conservative commentator Tucker Carlson, Caldwell suggested that his views may have made him enemies in Washington.
“I was out there advancing things that a lot of people in the foreign policy establishment didn’t want,” Caldwell said shortly after he was fired. “It doesn’t justify what’s happening to me, but let’s just be honest that is the nature of the games played in D.C.”
Today the Trump administration is engaged in a war with Iran, the kind of conflict that Caldwell has previously viewed with skepticism.
His earlier doubts have not prevented him from being welcomed back to the Trump fold. In a statement released Monday, Donald Trump Jr. praised Caldwell as “an America First warrior.”
“He’s a true loyalist to my father and the entire MAGA movement,” Trump said.
Caldwell’s skepticism also aligns with Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran who now oversees the nation’s intelligence apparatus. While she has avoided saying anything that would suggest she disagrees with President Donald Trump, she has been a critic of open-ended military conflicts and has hired a number of people who advocate a more restrained foreign policy.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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