Chaos at the Pentagon: Fulcher’s Exit Caps Months of Upheaval

Six senior officials in six months, plus the paranoia and disruption in Hegseth's DOJ

The Pentagon, long known for its rigid hierarchy and cool professionalism, is experiencing an extraordinary period of instability. In just six months under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, at least six senior officials have resigned, been reassigned, or been fired, leaving behind a trail of acrimony, chaos, and unanswered questions.

The latest departure, senior adviser Justin Fulcher, was announced on July 19th, following a series of high-profile shakeups that have rattled the Department of Defense. Fulcher’s exit, like those before him, appears to stem not from a single policy disagreement or personal decision but from a deeper dysfunction at the heart of the Pentagon’s leadership.

What began with a botched war-planning leak, known as SignalGate, has spiraled into an internal crisis: senior staff are subjected to polygraph interrogations, widespread distrust prevails among aides and officers, and a purge of those deemed insufficiently loyal ensues. The result, according to former officials and insiders, is a Department consumed by paranoia and politics at a time when it can least afford either.

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Justin Fulcher: Who He Is & Why He Left

Justin Fulcher’s departure this week is emblematic of the chaos engulfing the Pentagon. A former tech entrepreneur and Elon Musk ally, Fulcher joined the Department of Defense after a stint at the controversial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), where he helped lead cost‑cutting efforts that drew both praise and skepticism.

Hired in late April 2025 as a senior adviser to Secretary Hegseth, Fulcher was seen as part of a broader push to bring in outside disruptors aligned with Musk and Trump’s vision of a leaner, more aggressive Pentagon. But from the start, his abrasive style and disregard for institutional norms reportedly created friction with career officials and fellow appointees.

Within weeks of his arrival, Fulcher became a central player in the unfolding “SignalGate” scandal, even claiming, without evidence, that his Signal messages had been wiretapped by Pentagon security officials. According to reports from The Washington Post and The Guardian, his allegations distracted and complicated the leak investigation, while heightening tensions among already suspicious senior staff.

When Fulcher announced his departure in July — just about three months into the role — he framed it as part of a long‑planned “six‑month mission,” saying he’d always intended to move on at this time. However, that explanation raised eyebrows. Why would anyone take a senior Pentagon post, one of the most consequential and demanding positions in government, knowing they’d leave after a single quarter?

Pentagon insiders dismiss the notion that such a short tenure was planned from the outset. “People don’t get hired into senior roles like that on a three‑month timeline,” one former official told Politico. “That’s just not how this building works.”

Whether he left voluntarily or was pushed out, Fulcher’s exit is a stark indicator of the instability gripping the Pentagon under Hegseth’s leadership, and a cautionary tale about the limits of importing partisan loyalists and private‑sector disruptors into one of the most tradition‑bound institutions in Washington.

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Yinon Weiss’s Exit

Four days before Fulcher’s resignation, on July 15, Yinon Weiss, a tech entrepreneur and former Marine who served as a DOGE team lead at the Pentagon, announced his resignation. “Secretary Hegseth gave DOGE unprecedented opportunity and his front office made themselves available weekdays, evenings, and weekends; literally anytime we needed any guidance or support,” Weiss wrote, signaling gratitude even amidst turmoil.

However, reporting by The Washington Post, drawing on The Hill, revealed tensions behind the scenes. Conflict between Fulcher and Weiss reportedly resulted in Fulcher approaching Hegseth in early April, who is alleged to have “lashed out” at Weiss, “raising his voice.” The exact contours of that clash remain unclear, but it illustrates just how personal and heated the atmosphere inside the building had grown.

The close timing of the two departures suggests a possible correlation, possibly related to ongoing friction.

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The SignalGate Fallout

While Fulcher’s brief tenure drew headlines, the deepest fissure inside the Pentagon stemmed from the SignalGate scandal, which has shaken Hegseth’s leadership and led directly to the removal of three of his own senior aides.

The episode began in March 2025, when The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg revealed he had been inadvertently added to a Signal group chat where senior Pentagon officials discussed sensitive Yemen war plans. The incident, quickly dubbed SignalGate, sparked a frantic internal investigation to identify the source of the leak — a hunt led personally by Hegseth and his chief of staff, Joe Kasper.

Rather than wait for a formal review, Hegseth ordered staff to undergo polygraph examinations, and several officials described being interrogated aggressively and accused of sabotage.

See our SignalGate reporting here:

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The Signal Breach Scandal: Reckless, Dangerous, and No ‘Honest Mistake’

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On April 15th and 16th, three senior aides — Dan Caldwell, Darin Selnick, and Colin Carroll — were escorted off the premises or asked to leave. They were then placed on administrative leave, accused of mishandling sensitive information and suspected of disloyalty. They were officially fired on April 18th. Crucially, all three were not career Pentagon employees but handpicked Hegseth appointees, brought in during his first months to help execute his vision of a more combative and ideological Pentagon. Caldwell, a Marine Corps veteran, and Selnick, a longtime VA official, were both appointed to senior advisory roles in January and February; Carroll served as chief of staff to Deputy Secretary Steve Feinberg.

All three denied wrongdoing in a joint statement, calling the accusations “baseless” and their treatment “a political purge rather than a principled investigation.”

The turmoil escalated again in June, when a second Signal chat came to light, reportedly involving Hegseth sharing strike details with personal contacts, including his wife, brother, and lawyer. The revelation, quickly branded SignalGate 2.0, forced the Pentagon’s Office of Inspector General (IG) to expand its investigation.

The IG’s probe into both incidents is ongoing and has not yet released findings. Officials have confirmed that the review will examine whether classified material was improperly shared, if communications records were deleted in violation of policy, and whether internal security procedures were abused to intimidate staff.

The decision to sideline or remove aides — especially his own — before the IG investigation concluded raised further doubts about the integrity of the process. One former official described it as “textbook scapegoating,” and another characterized the atmosphere as “paranoid and vindictive.”

Even Hegseth’s own appointees described their removal as “a political purge”, which underscores just how unstable and insecure his leadership has become. When even handpicked loyalists feel sacrificed to political optics, it suggests a toxic culture where no one is safe.

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Other Key Departures & Reassignments

The chaos extends well beyond Fulcher and the SignalGate trio. Even some of the most central figures in Hegseth’s inner circle have been quietly sidelined, leaving the Pentagon’s leadership hollowed out and adrift.

Chief among them is Joe Kasper, Hegseth’s longtime chief of staff and one of the architects of the leak investigation. After leading the internal response to SignalGate, including ordering polygraphs and personally interrogating staff, Kasper was quietly moved on April 18th to a marginal role, confirmed by Hegseth on the 22nd. Stripped of his daily authority, he was reassigned as a part‑time “special government employee” overseeing unspecified “special projects,” a symbolic position limited to roughly 130 days of work per year.

According to reporting from The Guardian and CBS News, Kasper’s demotion followed months of turf battles and what colleagues described as erratic and unprofessional behavior, including missed meetings, disruptive outbursts, and crude comments during senior staff discussions. His abrupt fall from grace has left many in the building stunned, given his central role in Hegseth’s early months at the helm.

On April 17th, just after the SignalGate trio were put on leave, Pentagon spokesperson John Ullyot, a veteran communicator with years of experience as a White House aide and senior national security official, says he was asked to resign abruptly. Ullyot had previously served in senior roles in the Trump administration and brought a reputation for delivering steady and effective messaging. However, in his resignation and subsequent interviews, he criticized what he called a “terrible” and “chaotic” atmosphere inside the Pentagon, which he attributed to Hegseth's leadership. He specifically slammed the leadership’s handling of SignalGate as “horrible,” describing it as more focused on controlling optics and punishing perceived enemies than on governing effectively.

Combined with the earlier removal of Caldwell, Selnick, Carroll, and now Fulcher, these departures have left gaping holes at the top. As one senior defense official put it to Politico, “We have acting people acting for acting people. No one knows who is actually in charge anymore.” Another insider, speaking to The Daily Beast, summed it up more bluntly: “The building runs on continuity and trust. Right now it has neither.”

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The Broader Pattern

The exodus of senior officials and the rage over SignalGate aren’t isolated incidents. Instead, they form part of a broader trend of upheaval and politicization that has occurred since Hegseth took office.

Within weeks of taking the helm, Hegseth oversaw the removal of top legal leaders in both the Army and Air Force, signaling a deep reshaping of military legal doctrine. In July, he replaced Rear Admiral Yvette Davids, the first woman to lead the U.S. Naval Academy, with a Marine general who was more closely aligned with his ideological stance. Both moves have been widely interpreted as purges of “woke” elements and a shift toward cultural conformity within the force.

See our reporting on Trump’s high-profile military removals here:

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Meanwhile, at the policy level, the Pentagon canceled modest decarbonization grants and touted loyalty-check mechanisms such as polygraph mandates while simultaneously elevating DOGE alumni like Fulcher. The result is a pattern of hiring loyalists first, then quietly sidelining them when political pressures or optics demand it.

All of this suggests not reform, but transformation, a Department drifting from a professional, constitutional institution toward one driven by ideological priorities and performance theater. The departures, reassignments, and purge-style personnel moves indicate a Pentagon under Hegseth that is far more reactive and political than ready, and is dangerously eroding the norms that underpin both readiness and accountability.

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Why This Matters

For decades, the Pentagon has prided itself on professionalism, continuity, and loyalty to the Constitution above all else. It is not an institution designed to be ideological or partisan and for good reason: its mission is too important to be left to political whims.

Yet in just six months, Hegseth’s leadership has thrown that tradition into turmoil. The rapid succession of resignations, firings, and reassignments — including the removal of his own appointees — has hollowed out the department’s senior leadership, creating a culture of fear, distrust, and chaos.

From SignalGate to the JAG firings to the Naval Academy shakeup, the pattern is clear: loyalty to the administration is valued above competence, dissent is treated as disloyalty, and political optics trump institutional stability. Even those brought in to carry out Hegseth’s vision have found themselves discarded when they failed to meet impossible standards of personal loyalty or simply became inconvenient.

This level of dysfunction is not just a personnel story; it is a national security risk. A Pentagon consumed by paranoia and purges cannot effectively advise the president, reassure allies, deter adversaries, or serve its service members. The erosion of trust, expertise, and morale within the building undermines readiness at a time of real global challenges.

For an institution tasked with defending democracy, this politicization is more than a management failure. It is a threat to the very principles it exists to protect.

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