Dan Caldwell is not a name many Americans know. But inside Washington’s national security circles, he was a man on the rise. That is, until he was escorted from the Pentagon on Tuesday and placed on administrative leave. Caldwell is one of three Defense Department officials who have been ensnared in a leak probe that began last month.
Caldwell was a senior adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a close personal friend who he first met when both worked for the conservative nonprofit Concerned Veterans of America in the early 2010s. Before his boss was confirmed by the Senate, he headed a “landing team” to place mid-level officials inside the vast defense bureaucracy. He was one of the leaders of the “restrainer” faction inside the Trump administration, a network of policy wonks that have sought to end many of America’s overseas commitments and interventions. Caldwell was so trusted by Hegseth that he served as his proxy on the Signal group chat discussions over the plans to bomb Houthi rebels in Yemen.
And yet on Tuesday Caldwell was marched out of the Pentagon. The question is why?