Former Hegseth aide in op-ed: ‘Complete chaos on the Pentagon’
WASHINGTON — An aide to Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth revealed an op-ed Sunday wherein he was extremely essential of his former boss and urged that President Donald Trump may quickly take away him after weeks of turmoil, together with leaked texts about airstrikes in Yemen and the abrupt firings of high officers.
“It’s been a month of whole chaos on the Pentagon,” John Ullyot, who had been a high spokesman on the Protection Division earlier than he left his job there final week, wrote on Politico. “From leaks of delicate operational plans to mass firings, the dysfunction is now a serious distraction for the president — who deserves higher from his senior management.
“President Donald Trump has a powerful document of holding his officers to account. On condition that, it’s exhausting to see Secretary of Protection Pete Hegseth remaining in his place for for much longer.”
The Protection Division didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Ullyot, who labored within the first Trump administration, as nicely, additionally famous the firings of a number of high Pentagon officers within the final a number of days. On Friday, in line with Ullyot, Hegseth’s chief of employees, Joe Kasper, was faraway from his place following the firings of a number of different senior aides to Hegseth, together with deputy chief of employees Darin Selnick and senior adviser Dan Caldwell, in addition to the chief of employees to the deputy secretary of protection, Colin Carroll. (Selnick, Caldwell and Carroll mentioned in an announcement Saturday: “We’re extremely disenchanted by the way wherein our service on the Division of Protection ended. Unnamed Pentagon officers have slandered our character with baseless assaults on our means out the door.”)
“Within the aftermath [of the firings], Protection Division officers working for Hegseth tried to smear the aides anonymously to reporters, claiming they had been fired for leaking delicate data as a part of an investigation ordered earlier this month,” Ullyot wrote. “But none of that is true.”
Ullyot mentioned that he was not a part of the purge and that he opted to go away the Pentagon when he turned down a place Hegseth had provided him.
He described himself within the piece as loyal to Hegseth, however he additionally famous a collection of unforced errors by his former boss.
“[E]ven sturdy backers of the secretary like me should admit: the final month has been a full-blown meltdown on the Pentagon — and it’s changing into an actual downside for the administration,” he wrote.
The op-ed was revealed inside hours of The New York Occasions’ reporting that Hegseth used his private telephone to ship details about army operations in Yemen to a Sign group chat that included his spouse, his brother and his private lawyer. Two sources with information of the state of affairs confirmed the reporting to NBC Information.
