The Megyn Kelly Show - Exclusive： Alleged Pentagon ＂Leaker＂ Colin Carroll Speaks Out About Life Inside DOD, Hegseth's Leadership, and to Dispute Allegations

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00:00:31.220 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:42.520 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:45.580 As we've been telling you, controversy has been swirling around the Pentagon all week.

00:00:49.760 You've heard that everywhere.

00:00:51.080 With reports of, quote, total chaos in the building.

00:00:53.820 NPR reporting the White House is looking for a new defense secretary,

00:00:58.100 which Team Trump says is fake news.

00:01:00.360 But three of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's top aides,

00:01:04.640 Dan Caldwell, Colin Carroll and Darren Selnick,

00:01:08.560 did lose their jobs last week,

00:01:11.120 reportedly as the result of a leak investigation.

00:01:13.840 They were looking into who's been leaking to the media.

00:01:17.140 These three got offered up as the sacrificial lambs.

00:01:20.240 Now, they deny that they leaked,

00:01:23.440 and they say that they still support Pete Hegseth.

00:01:26.620 You heard from Dan Caldwell on the Tucker Carlson podcast on Monday,

00:01:30.520 and today, one of the remaining two who was fired, Colin Carroll, is here with me.

00:01:37.180 He served as chief of staff to deputy defense secretary,

00:01:40.940 Steven Feinberg, at least until last Friday.

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00:02:42.520 Colin, thanks for being here.

00:02:44.140 Thanks for having me, Megan.

00:02:45.120 And thanks for your service.

00:02:46.320 Thank you.

00:02:46.900 What branch of the military did you serve in?

00:02:48.720 I am still in the Marine Corps Reserve.

00:02:50.640 Still in.

00:02:51.000 I was active duty for a while.

00:02:52.340 Okay.

00:02:52.660 And you were deployed?

00:02:53.820 I was deployed.

00:02:54.840 Yes, ma'am.

00:02:55.320 Afghanistan?

00:02:56.340 Afghanistan three times.

00:02:57.700 Wow.

00:02:58.140 Thank you.

00:02:58.940 I appreciate it.

00:02:59.960 So you wound up working in the Pentagon.

00:03:02.720 How?

00:03:03.060 So I graduated from the Naval Academy, aerospace engineer, went in the Marine Corps, did my

00:03:08.780 time as an active duty intelligence officer, weirdly not doing a lot of intel things, but

00:03:13.100 mostly in the force reconnaissance community, deployed a bunch of times.

00:03:17.520 I left the Marine Corps.

00:03:19.300 I continued to serve as a duty civilian for a while, doing some other jobs.

00:03:23.940 And then I left the duty to go work for Project Maven as a, as a Marine Corps Reserve officer.

00:03:30.680 So in the office of secretary of defense, 2017 to 2019, it's an AI program.

00:03:35.840 From there, I went to Johns Hopkins.

00:03:37.640 I went out to industry and then I left, I was at Andrel Industries.

00:03:41.280 I left Andrel right before the, the administration started here.

00:03:44.600 And I joined to be the deputy's chief of staff.

00:03:47.220 Okay.

00:03:47.760 So where is Steven Feinberg in relation to Pete?

00:03:51.440 He works directly for Pete and he is the deputy, deputy secretary of defense.

00:03:55.640 So the normal way things work, the secretary is kind of up and out, up being towards the

00:04:00.360 White House, out being towards, you know, the combat commands, our allies and partners,

00:04:03.840 and then the deputies down and in.

00:04:05.860 So running the day-to-day operations of the department.

00:04:08.320 And so you were his chief of staff and who was Pete's chief of staff?

00:04:12.480 Pete's chief of staff was Joe Casper until I think earlier this week.

00:04:16.040 He's going to, we're going to hear that name a lot.

00:04:18.040 So you two were sort of parallel, in parallel positions.

00:04:21.020 He was for the top guy and you were for the number two guy.

00:04:23.540 Correct.

00:04:24.480 And how does Dan Caldwell fit in, the one who went on Tucker?

00:04:27.540 So Dan is a close friend of Pete or probably was until about a week ago.

00:04:32.280 Dan, I met Dan in November during the transition.

00:04:35.580 Dan was kind of the guy in the back of the room when Pete interviewed me back in November.

00:04:39.340 And he was with the secretary all the way through transition, confirmation.

00:04:44.780 He joined as a senior advisor doing policy ops work in the secretary's front office.

00:04:50.340 He and the secretary go way back to probably a decade plus ago doing veterans work and things

00:04:55.440 like that from the past.

00:04:57.240 How about Darren?

00:04:58.080 What's Darren?

00:04:59.100 Darren also is an old friend of the secretary, worked together for probably a decade plus,

00:05:05.180 again, in the veterans community doing veterans work.

00:05:07.600 He is an advisor to the secretary, was an advisor to the secretary until last week for

00:05:12.820 really like workforce personnel things.

00:05:15.940 And then he became the deputies, sorry, he became the deputy chief of staff to the secretary

00:05:20.460 maybe a month and a half ago.

00:05:22.140 So one under Joe Casper.

00:05:24.060 Correct.

00:05:24.580 Okay.

00:05:25.180 So you knew all these guys while you were working at DOD for the past.

00:05:28.080 I worked with them closely every day.

00:05:29.860 Okay.

00:05:30.300 And, you know, you were brought into the Trump administration.

00:05:33.020 You hadn't been at DOD until Trump won.

00:05:35.960 I was not part of Trump won, actually.

00:05:37.700 No, I was just a regular career.

00:05:38.900 I mean, until Trump, W-O-N.

00:05:40.920 Sorry, Trump won in November.

00:05:42.380 That's correct.

00:05:42.920 I joined this time around.

00:05:44.360 All right.

00:05:44.660 And so just personally, tell us a little bit about yourself.

00:05:46.700 How old are you?

00:05:47.260 Are you married?

00:05:47.840 Kids?

00:05:48.140 40, married.

00:05:49.240 I have a wonderful baby boy.

00:05:51.360 He's nine months old.

00:05:52.640 My wife's pregnant.

00:05:53.540 So we're having a second one here later this year.

00:05:56.220 God love her.

00:05:56.920 And she's probably gonna kill me for saying that on TV, but I just did it.

00:06:01.060 Uh, I live in outside DC and, um, I really, really wanted to go back to the department

00:06:07.480 of defense.

00:06:08.320 Um, in 2021, I was fired by the previous deputy secretary of defense, which is now I have the

00:06:13.400 honor of having been fired by a deputy secretary and a secretary of defense, you know, in a

00:06:17.780 five-year period.

00:06:19.080 Um, yeah, I really, really wanted to go back and I can, I can talk about why, but yeah.

00:06:23.540 Why'd you get fired first time?

00:06:24.800 Well, first time I got fired, uh, I worked at an organization called the joint AI center,

00:06:28.560 the Jake, I was the chief operations officer.

00:06:31.160 So I was responsible to make the organization function.

00:06:34.180 Um, my job was to cut programs.

00:06:37.000 Uh, I, I got there.

00:06:38.100 They had a lot of bloat.

00:06:39.080 My job was to reduce it to from 30 things to maybe five to eight things.

00:06:43.140 You were Doge before Doge was cool.

00:06:44.960 I was Doge before Doge was cool.

00:06:46.220 And, uh, as a part of that, you know, I did not make friends in some places.

00:06:50.000 You take people's money away, but in that era in the department, you couldn't get rid of

00:06:54.480 people.

00:06:55.360 So there were just lots of unhappy people that didn't have any money to spend on their

00:06:59.000 programs.

00:06:59.480 And they, they, uh, you know, complained to the IG about me.

00:07:04.120 There was a morale survey.

00:07:05.340 The morale was very low.

00:07:06.440 The quote that I love the best is, uh, Colin Carroll had his foot on the throat of innovation

00:07:11.200 at the Jake, which is really funny.

00:07:13.080 Anyone that actually knows me knows that I'm a pretty innovative person and I'm very supportive

00:07:16.420 of innovation, but that was enough to get me tossed.

00:07:18.760 And I'll be honest, you know, I'm a Marine, I'm a direct person.

00:07:23.620 I can be abrasive.

00:07:24.840 I'm sure that I didn't handle every situation back then entirely well.

00:07:28.480 So, you know, no harm, no harm feelings.

00:07:31.140 Live and learn.

00:07:31.700 Well, no one's alleging that you needed to get fired this time because you were abrasive

00:07:36.620 towards staff, et cetera.

00:07:38.140 You've been accused of something far more serious as you know.

00:07:41.020 Okay.

00:07:41.560 So you get back into the Pentagon and you're working as the chief of staff for Pete's right

00:07:47.400 and man, his deputy, and you're dealing with all this cast of characters that I mentioned.

00:07:53.120 And at least the Darren and Dan are both close to Pete you, but you didn't know Pete.

00:07:58.800 No.

00:07:59.020 So if you think I volunteered to go back and then I volunteered to be the deputy chief

00:08:03.900 of staff, I was supposed to do a different role.

00:08:05.500 I volunteered to come in and in the very beginning and, and kind of set the foundation for him

00:08:10.680 to join and then get him going.

00:08:12.060 And then he asked me to stay.

00:08:13.640 So I said, I'll, I will stay for a couple of years.

00:08:15.620 You meaning Pete or Steve Feinberg?

00:08:17.040 Steve Feinberg.

00:08:17.640 Okay.

00:08:19.220 The other guys were actually called by the secretary and said, Hey, please come join

00:08:24.620 me in the administration.

00:08:25.940 I cannot be successful without you.

00:08:28.080 So different, different story.

00:08:29.720 They, they upended their lives to come as well, but I volunteered.

00:08:32.720 I was not a phone call saying, Colin, we really need you to come.

00:08:35.680 I just really wanted to come back.

00:08:36.860 And let's just set the stage on ideology.

00:08:40.640 I listened to Dan Caldwell on Tucker.

00:08:42.540 Where he's, I think, very much aligned with Tucker's view of foreign policy, more dovish,

00:08:48.660 less hawkish, very anti-neocon.

00:08:51.540 Both having come to that organically over the years, but Dan actually fought, um, it was,

00:08:58.320 you know, as a soldier.

00:08:59.140 And so, you know, has a personally, um, very committed view towards that.

00:09:03.640 And, and you're in that camp yourself or no?

00:09:05.580 Um, well, I can tell you having, uh, been in a war for something like two and a half

00:09:12.580 years of my life total, um, I am not a fan of going to places that I think we, we have

00:09:18.100 no real policy objective.

00:09:19.060 And then our military officers are not really understanding like the strategy to win.

00:09:23.220 We don't even know what winning is, but I'm not a policy person.

00:09:26.300 Quite frankly, I was brought into buy the right thing at the right cost, which is a

00:09:31.400 completely different problem that the department has.

00:09:33.260 And that, uh, is a really intangible problem that we're trying to fix or intractable problem,

00:09:36.680 I should say.

00:09:37.540 That's me.

00:09:38.400 I think Darren was brought in very much on the workforce side and the military health

00:09:41.880 side to try and rectify some of the problems there.

00:09:44.020 And Dan is a policy ops person.

00:09:46.300 So his, his role was, uh, UConn policy.

00:09:49.360 So Europe, Europe and CENTCOM policy.

00:09:52.060 So, you know, the Middle East, that's what he focused on.

00:09:55.840 You know, that Dan alleged that he's not a leaker.

00:09:59.340 He leaked nothing and that it's possible.

00:10:02.760 He was fired for his ideology in particular, his position that we should not be getting

00:10:08.580 into a war with Iran.

00:10:10.180 What do you think of that?

00:10:11.740 I think I watched that.

00:10:13.720 I think that maybe Tucker was kind of had an angle there.

00:10:17.280 And honestly, when we were fired, I don't think none of us knew exactly what was going

00:10:22.320 on.

00:10:22.620 So when he filmed that, I think it was still very nebulous as to why we were fired.

00:10:26.900 You and I are talking on Friday.

00:10:27.880 It's been a week since you're firing.

00:10:29.420 Right.

00:10:29.600 He interviewed with Tucker.

00:10:30.640 It came out, I think, uh, Monday morning.

00:10:32.900 So correct.

00:10:33.440 So you probably interviewed over the weekend.

00:10:34.740 I think that since then we've learned a lot more and that's from, you know, friends

00:10:40.140 in the white house, friends in the building, um, the air force OSI investigators.

00:10:44.580 I talked to the media blitz of people that have called us saying, Hey, here's what the

00:10:49.880 white house or here's what the department of defense is leaking about you right now.

00:10:53.100 Can you comment on it?

00:10:54.380 And so I think we have a better, and then honestly, Joe Casper did a, on the record

00:10:57.780 interview with drop site.

00:10:59.320 Joe Casper, just for the record again, is the chief of staff to Pete Hegseth or was up

00:11:04.080 until a couple of days ago.

00:11:05.520 And, um, it has been moved out of that position in this same time period and has been sort

00:11:12.460 of, I don't know if we'd call it a demotion, but he was a staffer and has been changed into

00:11:17.900 a special government employee, which is different and less scrutinized position.

00:11:23.640 The way to look at this is, um, you have political appointees, i.e. people that were vetted by

00:11:28.220 the white house and were appointed.

00:11:29.640 Some of them are Senate confirmed.

00:11:31.420 Others are like me.

00:11:32.680 I was just a political appointee.

00:11:34.400 Joe was a political appointee as well.

00:11:35.900 He is no longer a political appointee.

00:11:37.700 So he is no longer a part of the Trump administration.

00:11:40.280 He is a, basically a part-time, uh, employee.

00:11:43.680 Like Elon, who's got sort of the same role.

00:11:45.400 Same, same, um, exact, uh, you know, hiring mechanism.

00:11:49.960 I'm not sure if it's exactly the same thing because sometimes you can be part-time.

00:11:52.740 Sometimes you can be full-time for a certain period of time.

00:11:55.960 Elon was like full-time for a certain period of time.

00:11:58.080 I'm not a hundred percent sure what Joe says.

00:11:59.620 Why would they move somebody who's a political appointee over to the position of special government

00:12:03.380 employee?

00:12:04.760 My understanding is that there was a meeting in the white house last week, uh, maybe Thursday

00:12:09.660 or Friday morning.

00:12:10.900 That was kind of a, Hey, how do we do damage control on the, you know, own goal that we created

00:12:16.580 here?

00:12:17.600 Uh, and out of that meeting, there were two kinds of outcomes.

00:12:20.560 One was what to do with Joe and one was what to do with the three of us.

00:12:24.900 And, uh, you know, this is from people I've talked to that were not in the meeting, but

00:12:29.560 got the debrief after the meeting.

00:12:32.100 Um, the secretary was told basically Joe needs to move out of the role of chief of staff.

00:12:38.200 I'm not sure it was related to the investigation, the actions of last week, or if it was just

00:12:42.360 Joe was not the best chief of staff and they were kind of frustrated with him.

00:12:45.700 We can talk about why.

00:12:47.320 Um, but he was basically told move him and kind of do it in a quiet way.

00:12:51.540 And, and, you know, and then that turned into, that wasn't that quiet because somebody leaked

00:12:55.980 it out of the white house or wherever.

00:12:57.040 And then it was in the press, uh, that same meeting, you know, they looked at what to do

00:13:01.620 with the three of us.

00:13:02.240 And my understanding is there were some parts of the white house that were very supportive

00:13:05.800 of retaining us and bringing us back.

00:13:07.940 And then, uh, you know, there was some evidence that was, he's doing air quotes for the listening

00:13:13.600 audience.

00:13:14.360 There's some evidence of, uh, that was told that may or may not exist.

00:13:19.260 And because people said, Hey, there's evidence here.

00:13:22.420 And, and I was also told that someone said that we failed polygraphs.

00:13:26.020 Uh, the presidential personnel office decided get rid of them.

00:13:29.780 On leaking.

00:13:30.500 Correct.

00:13:30.800 Okay.

00:13:31.260 All right.

00:13:31.440 So let's, let's go back now and set that up.

00:13:33.880 So you're, you're running along, things are going, I guess.

00:13:37.800 Okay.

00:13:38.500 But before this whole dustup started, which really started at the beginning of April,

00:13:43.280 I think like you get this phone call from this political reporter, but prior to that

00:13:47.840 April 2nd phone call, how, how is the office operating?

00:13:52.900 Yeah.

00:13:53.300 I mean, you have to understand, uh, the dynamic between secretary's office and the deputy's office

00:13:57.720 and like a, what I'll call traditional, um, administration, which I don't think is always

00:14:03.560 the right answer, but traditionally how it is, is the secretary's chief of staff and the

00:14:06.880 deputy chief of staff have a very close relationship, talk to each other 10, 20 times a day and are

00:14:12.260 ensuring that what the, what the president wants from the white house is what the secretary's

00:14:16.540 vision is.

00:14:17.300 And then the deputy's, you know, delivering those results, the key thing there being taking

00:14:22.100 words and memos and then making them reality.

00:14:25.300 I was brought in because quite frankly, like the one thing I'm really good at is making shit

00:14:30.400 happen.

00:14:30.880 That's what people pay me to do.

00:14:32.220 And I'm very, very good at it.

00:14:33.720 I'm not the best chief of staff I'm learning too, but I know how to take words and build

00:14:38.560 a team and make it, make it reality.

00:14:40.180 The secretary's office really struggled with the word team, both internally and then with

00:14:48.500 the deputy's office and then with the rest of the building.

00:14:50.400 That was my observation.

00:14:51.940 How so?

00:14:52.980 Well, um, you know, you, you said at the beginning here that people are kind of, this is a story

00:14:57.900 about personalities and people like that's actually 100% accurate.

00:15:00.500 Like most things in life, it's a story about personalities and people.

00:15:03.540 I'm a firm believer in the fact that you need to be able to build a competent team, trust that

00:15:08.880 team, you can have arguments with that team, uh, but then you can go out and grab a beer

00:15:13.140 afterwards and everybody's kind of able to have a relationship, um, no matter how tense

00:15:18.740 it gets in the office.

00:15:19.520 And this is a super stressful environment, right?

00:15:22.180 You've got something like 200 executive orders in, in 45 days.

00:15:26.280 We're, we're all running as fast as we can.

00:15:28.480 There's a lot of pressure coming to the white house.

00:15:29.700 There's also just like the daily operational stuff that's happening.

00:15:32.320 And then there's the constant continuous rhythm of things that happen that need to happen

00:15:36.820 to make the department run.

00:15:37.840 Um, Joe was a very non-traditional chief of staff and he may have been brought in to be

00:15:46.240 that maybe nobody knew he was going to be that.

00:15:48.520 I don't know.

00:15:49.120 I didn't make the decision, but working with him was very difficult.

00:15:52.880 And I think there's out there in the press, it's, you know, the white house, other people

00:15:56.820 in the department, it's not just me.

00:15:58.380 I, I really struggled to get a relationship with the guy.

00:16:00.800 I tried really hard, uh, but I couldn't do it.

00:16:03.400 He didn't want to talk to me.

00:16:04.480 Didn't want to include us in meetings.

00:16:05.800 I don't know if that's his personality, if there's something from his past history that

00:16:10.240 said like, this is how to do it, but you can't run a 3 million person organization by

00:16:15.020 kind of like having a cabal of five people and making decisions.

00:16:18.180 It's like shotgunning memos out.

00:16:20.020 That's not how it is.

00:16:21.040 How change actually happens.

00:16:23.760 Um, and so I, I don't think that we ever, we struggled as an administration to really put

00:16:28.520 a functioning team together.

00:16:30.020 Cause you need to be in communication with your counterpart over in the secretary's office.

00:16:33.980 And that man was not receptive to dealing with you very well.

00:16:37.500 Yeah.

00:16:37.760 And, and, you know, you can say, Hey, I saw a thing that said something like packages.

00:16:42.120 So if you, people that have listened here and have been in the department, understand that

00:16:45.720 a package is basically like a decision paper.

00:16:48.460 That's coming from somewhere in the department that has to get staffed and coordinated.

00:16:51.520 It's typically a really long process is arduous.

00:16:54.960 The last administration was non-functional because they couldn't make decisions because

00:16:59.640 they really wanted consensus before a package came for decision.

00:17:02.980 Well, the department's like not a, you know, there's 300 organizations.

00:17:06.620 You're never going to get all of them to have consensus.

00:17:10.080 Um, but you still need at least some level of process to coordinate things and get them

00:17:14.580 through and get them signed by the secretary.

00:17:16.020 We just really struggle with that process.

00:17:18.080 It was, it was people running in and out directly to the secretary.

00:17:22.240 Hey, do this.

00:17:23.120 You know, people finding out about it weeks later or days later and going like, how the

00:17:27.840 hell did that even get signed?

00:17:29.280 Like, I don't think the lawyers looked at that, like that type of stuff.

00:17:32.300 I'm all about moving fast and breaking things.

00:17:33.920 And people that know me know I move fast and break things, but I also try to do it in a

00:17:38.060 way that protects my leadership and, um, sets us up to actually execute the thing that

00:17:43.080 we're trying to do.

00:17:44.220 So it's hard to do if you're not even in on what's happening behind closed doors.

00:17:48.080 In the secretary's office.

00:17:49.620 Correct.

00:17:50.120 Can't really execute.

00:17:50.860 I used to, I mean, yeah, a little bit of a black hole up there, but my way around that

00:17:54.640 was to talk to people like Dan and then Darren, when he became the deputy chief or the deputy

00:17:59.300 chief staff.

00:18:00.700 And I actually thought up until a week ago that we kind of worked a process by which

00:18:04.720 we could function.

00:18:06.240 I don't say like around Joe Casper, but just with Joe, the way that he was.

00:18:11.840 Because those two are on the other side.

00:18:13.540 They're more on Pete's side and you're on the deputy side where you're kind of the

00:18:17.980 worker horse, the workhorse.

00:18:19.500 Correct.

00:18:19.680 So if you could get Dan and Darren talking to you, it was a meaningful end around Joe

00:18:24.280 if you couldn't get Joe's attention.

00:18:26.120 Right.

00:18:26.360 And honestly, Darren's role as deputy chief of staff was to kind of be the chief of staff.

00:18:30.820 Okay.

00:18:31.540 Okay.

00:18:32.140 All right.

00:18:32.320 So that was working and you were all in alignment with Pete, right?

00:18:35.420 I mean, it was like, let's just settle that.

00:18:36.860 Is there, was there a divide between you three guys and Pete in any way?

00:18:40.320 No, the only thing I would say maybe in the secretary's office that there was a divide

00:18:43.860 about was whether Joe's fit to serve in that role.

00:18:47.660 You three had one opinion and Pete.

00:18:49.380 Nobody ever asked me, but if they had asked me, I would have said, yeah, I don't think

00:18:52.720 so.

00:18:53.100 It's not working.

00:18:53.940 So unfit.

00:18:55.160 How's how?

00:18:57.920 From my observation, just not responsive.

00:19:01.920 Sometimes not there.

00:19:05.160 Not, not always giving the best advice to the secretary on like how to do things.

00:19:10.320 I think, for example, had they wanted to just get rid of us, they could have said, hey,

00:19:15.380 the advice here is Colin, Darren, and Dan aren't aligned anymore.

00:19:18.700 They're an obstacle.

00:19:19.520 Whatever the case is, let's just terminate them for cause because we serve at the pleasure

00:19:23.000 of the president and the secretary.

00:19:24.160 You can literally just get rid of us.

00:19:25.800 What they did instead was they tied us to a leak investigation.

00:19:28.860 There is a real leak investigation.

00:19:30.220 We can talk about that to the extent I'm allowed to share, but there is one.

00:19:33.380 They tied us to that when there's absolutely no evidence and it made no sense.

00:19:37.420 And then they basically publicly executed us.

00:19:40.340 And I'm not a hundred percent sure what the reasoning was, but that, you know, any, I look

00:19:45.400 at that as soon as it was happening, I kind of realized what was happening.

00:19:48.400 And all I could think was this is totally going to backfire here and not end the way that you

00:19:52.740 think it's going to end.

00:19:53.480 Um, but for whatever reason, the advice that the secretary was getting from Joe and some

00:19:59.240 of the other people there was, yeah, this is going to be great to get rid of you three

00:20:03.200 and, and just the way that they did it.

00:20:05.560 Right.

00:20:06.380 So what happened, let's just back up because, all right, so you're going along, it's not

00:20:10.400 perfectly smooth and you've got some problems with Joe.

00:20:13.980 Uh, and I can see from some of the comments he's made, for example, to journalist Ryan Grimm,

00:20:19.100 he's not your fan either.

00:20:20.820 Um, but then on April 2nd, you get a call, um, April 3rd, sorry.

00:20:27.480 You get a call from a reporter at Politico, uh, named Lipman, right?

00:20:32.040 Last name Lipman.

00:20:33.280 And this is where things start to go sideways and get us to this point where everybody's

00:20:38.400 fired.

00:20:38.620 So this guy, this guy calls you and you didn't like this guy because two weeks earlier, he'd

00:20:45.240 done a hit piece on you about your firing, your earlier firing at DOD that we just went

00:20:50.040 through.

00:20:50.500 Correct.

00:20:51.000 So no one wants to see that written about in Politico.

00:20:53.520 It wasn't very nice.

00:20:54.900 Politico never is.

00:20:56.300 Yeah.

00:20:56.800 So not towards the Republicans or Republican administration.

00:20:59.340 So this guy calls you and what do you say?

00:21:02.280 His phone's in your, his numbers in your phone because you dealt with him on the record.

00:21:08.000 I was able to give him a comment via my public affairs office.

00:21:12.000 It was all known at the Pentagon dealing with him when they were doing the hippies on you

00:21:15.020 was not forbidden.

00:21:15.840 Like they knew, you know, I mean, it was the deputy's office.

00:21:18.880 We dealt with it and I gave him a comment and he wrote his piece.

00:21:21.200 Okay.

00:21:21.660 But it wasn't a mystery to anybody at the Pentagon that Colin's getting hit by Politico

00:21:25.000 and we're going to allow him to make one statement to them.

00:21:28.040 I don't think it was a mystery.

00:21:29.460 No.

00:21:29.740 Okay.

00:21:30.400 So that happened.

00:21:31.440 And then his number was in your phone because they connected you with him.

00:21:35.720 I called him to give him a comment.

00:21:37.460 Okay.

00:21:38.000 I think I texted him a comment just to make sure that, because my comment, if I said

00:21:41.760 something on the, or the phone probably would have been vulgar and not very good.

00:21:44.760 So I wrote it and texted it to him.

00:21:46.240 Okay.

00:21:46.600 But yeah, he called, I picked up the phone and I literally, I was driving out of the

00:21:50.440 parking lot of the Pentagon and I said, Hey, are you calling to apologize to which he

00:21:54.460 said no?

00:21:55.180 And then he just basically asked me, Hey, have you heard anything about an investigation

00:21:59.620 into Joe?

00:22:00.740 And I said, no.

00:22:01.560 An investigation into Joe Casper, the chief of staffer, Pete Hexf.

00:22:06.420 Okay.

00:22:06.520 And had you, I'd not know that was the first you heard about any, any investigation into

00:22:11.780 Pete, or sorry, into Joe, not Pete.

00:22:14.320 Correct.

00:22:14.920 Okay.

00:22:15.160 Um, it will later be alleged that you orchestrated that phone call from Dan Lipman.

00:22:20.880 I read that in Ryan's piece and, uh, Joe is claiming this.

00:22:24.360 Yeah.

00:22:24.900 That's what Joe said.

00:22:25.780 I've read that.

00:22:26.420 That you, you wanted an IG investigation of him or had started an IG investigation of him

00:22:32.020 and somehow manipulated Dan Lipman at Politico to call you.

00:22:36.520 Now I'm doing the air quotes, um, where, whereas really you were the one who had first reached

00:22:41.260 out because you wanted to see in Politico that there was an investigation into Joe.

00:22:45.560 Yeah.

00:22:45.960 From what Ryan told me, cause I, I went on the record for Ryan as well.

00:22:50.540 And he kind of walked me through this when he called like the most batshit crazy interview

00:22:54.320 he's ever done.

00:22:55.600 Um, with Joe Casper, is that Joe had about six stories for how this occurred, ranging from

00:23:02.140 there was never a call ranging from Colin called the reporter.

00:23:05.800 Colin meant to email the reporter, but accidentally emailed the public affairs office.

00:23:10.540 That is reflected in Ryan's report.

00:23:12.000 It's clear Ryan thinks Joe's all over the board on, on suggesting how this went down.

00:23:16.440 Um, I'm not 100% sure why, like the facts are the guy called me.

00:23:20.700 I texted Dan when I got home after dinner and said, what do you want me to do?

00:23:24.160 I got this call.

00:23:24.920 You texted Dan.

00:23:25.520 He said, yep.

00:23:26.340 He said, send a note to Sean Parnell, who was in the public affairs office, which is

00:23:30.160 exactly what I did.

00:23:30.980 He's basically a spokesperson for the Pentagon now for Pete.

00:23:33.420 Correct.

00:23:33.800 Yeah.

00:23:34.020 Okay.

00:23:34.260 We know Sean.

00:23:35.020 Yeah.

00:23:35.500 All right.

00:23:35.780 So, and you did that because we have an email from you to Sean saying, Hey, I got this call

00:23:39.920 from this guy.

00:23:40.540 Yes.

00:23:41.380 So you, but you maintain.

00:23:42.940 And then I talked to Sean the next day.

00:23:44.160 He called me, I think it was a Friday afternoon.

00:23:46.280 I was out in the field throwing a ball to my dog.

00:23:48.140 He called me and I told him the same thing.

00:23:50.260 That you'd gotten this call.

00:23:51.420 Correct.

00:23:51.700 And that you didn't, you didn't, did you speak with Dan Lippin on anything of substance?

00:23:55.460 No.

00:23:56.080 Okay.

00:23:56.340 So what did you tell him?

00:23:57.680 I said, I don't know what you're talking about.

00:23:59.940 I don't know anything about an IG investigation.

00:24:02.240 Okay.

00:24:03.160 And, uh, the comm shop basically said, don't have further communication with it.

00:24:08.080 No, no one, no one said anything to me.

00:24:10.540 Honestly, I, Sean was just like, this is crazy.

00:24:12.860 I don't know anything about it.

00:24:14.160 And, uh, that was it.

00:24:16.500 I mean, okay.

00:24:17.420 Yeah.

00:24:18.140 So this is early April.

00:24:20.220 Have, have any leak investigations happened yet?

00:24:24.340 Have the leaks, I don't have it in my mind when the leak was on the Panama Canal, on the

00:24:27.900 Elon briefing at the Pentagon.

00:24:29.720 Had it, had it started already?

00:24:30.900 The leaks?

00:24:31.120 It definitely started.

00:24:31.940 The leaks had started, but did you know anything about an IG investigation into who the leakers

00:24:36.060 were at that point?

00:24:37.640 No, let me walk you through the investigation real quick.

00:24:39.460 Cause it is kind of confusing.

00:24:40.820 So there were leaks.

00:24:43.220 Um, there were probably four or five that the secretary cared about and said, go investigate.

00:24:47.680 These were in like the February, maybe March timeframe.

00:24:50.720 The ones that are out in the press are the Panama, um, and then Elon visit.

00:24:56.600 And then I think they're, they mentioned another one about maybe seizing or stopping or starting

00:25:01.320 Ukraine aid.

00:25:01.900 I forget which it was.

00:25:02.860 Yeah.

00:25:03.060 I just, I have just a little timeline here on March 5th political with a story on, we

00:25:07.380 stopped intelligence sharing with Ukraine on March 13th.

00:25:12.000 NBC news went with the big one, which was Trump white house has asked the military to

00:25:16.700 develop options for the Panama canal March 20th.

00:25:20.420 The New York times with a story, the Pentagon set up a briefing for Elon Musk on potential

00:25:24.420 war with China.

00:25:25.280 That one was said to have infuriated Trump who saw that it would be inappropriate to

00:25:29.240 brief Elon at the Pentagon on anything happening with China, given his business interests there.

00:25:34.520 March 21, political ran a story entitled Trump sends second aircraft carrier to the Middle

00:25:38.680 East and ramp up against the Houthis.

00:25:41.820 Um, and then we had the signal debacle with Jeffrey Goldberg that hit the press and that

00:25:50.940 dominated the media for quite some time.

00:25:52.820 Then on March 28th, wall street journal ran a story.

00:25:55.580 Hegseth brought his wife to sensitive meetings with a foreign military official.

00:26:00.060 And here we are on April 3rd, we're acting Pentagon inspector general, Stephen Stebbins,

00:26:04.740 said he was opening an investigation into the signal gate story.

00:26:09.820 Um, and shortly thereafter, April 15th, the three of you, April 15th and 16th, the three

00:26:15.620 of you were placed on leave.

00:26:16.700 So, okay.

00:26:17.600 So when we're back at early April and you get this call from Politico, we'd had leaking,

00:26:21.620 but we hadn't yet had an announcement of investigation into leaking.

00:26:26.560 It might not have been announced, but there was definitely an investigation going.

00:26:30.140 Okay.

00:26:30.280 We talked about it internally and walked through, Hey, what's the best way to do this?

00:26:35.160 Uh, I don't exactly remember when Joe signed the memo saying, Hey, we're chartering an investigation,

00:26:39.400 but there was investigation.

00:26:41.220 Okay.

00:26:41.560 So he was the one initially to get the IG on the case.

00:26:44.920 It's actually not the IG.

00:26:46.140 Oh, it's not.

00:26:46.960 No.

00:26:47.220 Oh, it's the air force.

00:26:48.320 They went with the air force office of special investigation.

00:26:52.640 I think air force OSI, which is, you know, the air force has air force OSI.

00:26:57.500 Navy has NCIS.

00:26:58.480 The army has army CID.

00:26:59.560 These are like the criminal investigative units of the services.

00:27:02.080 The air force was assigned to do this one.

00:27:04.120 It could have been anybody, but it was the air force.

00:27:05.540 I think it probably could have been anybody, but maybe there's, maybe the air force is

00:27:08.320 like the executive agent to support the office of secretary of defense.

00:27:10.740 I'm not sure.

00:27:11.400 Okay.

00:27:12.020 But they started their investigation and they've been doing an investigation.

00:27:15.820 I, uh, I talked to them.

00:27:19.460 I can, so we were put on leave and we were then terminated.

00:27:24.640 So I was put on leave on a Wednesday, terminated on a Friday.

00:27:27.340 The other guys were Tuesday.

00:27:29.320 Um, air force OSI, by the way, is doing its investigation.

00:27:34.000 None of us talked to air force OSI.

00:27:36.560 Um, I can walk you through how I was like escorted out, but it was, it was very funny.

00:27:41.220 I mean, there are these two older gentlemen.

00:27:43.940 One guy had been depending on for 47 years.

00:27:46.200 They came from Washington headquarters services, like administrative security.

00:27:50.400 And, you know, the dude was like a national hero.

00:27:52.620 He, he was, he had a cane because he burned his legs with jet fuel on nine 11, trying to

00:27:58.020 like save some other airmen's lives.

00:27:59.420 And he was like an E seven in the air force.

00:28:01.560 And the other gentleman had a cane too.

00:28:02.940 So it was the slowest perp walk of all time.

00:28:05.260 I like walked down to this guy's, you know, room in the basement and they would walk me

00:28:09.260 out after, you know, talking to me for 30 minutes.

00:28:11.920 Um, super nice.

00:28:13.040 Don't fault them at all.

00:28:14.140 They just read me out of my clearances and then said, you know, like, what's going on?

00:28:18.960 And I was like, what do you think?

00:28:19.920 I think it's going on.

00:28:20.520 We had a conversation.

00:28:21.800 But were they the ones who told you you were fired?

00:28:23.500 They did.

00:28:24.020 Yeah.

00:28:24.180 Well, they told me I was put on leave.

00:28:25.980 Actually, they didn't really know what status I was in.

00:28:28.020 They're like, we're not sure.

00:28:28.740 We're trying to find out, but basically you got to get out of here.

00:28:31.220 Yeah.

00:28:31.320 Okay.

00:28:31.500 And so I spent the next five days, uh, messaging people in the department to say, please send

00:28:40.320 Air Force OSI to talk to me.

00:28:42.720 And over on, on Easter Sunday, I got, you know, somebody called me and said, Hey, a friend

00:28:49.200 of mine called, said Air Force OSI will reach out to you.

00:28:52.460 I've been bugging people like literally every two hours.

00:28:55.740 They called, they came into my house on Monday.

00:28:57.860 They made me sign an NDA, which I think is a little strange, but, um, so I'm not going

00:29:03.760 to talk about the details of their investigation.

00:29:06.280 I did talk to the agent.

00:29:07.680 He told me that I could defend myself as accused and, you know, kind of talk about the generality.

00:29:11.880 So I'll, I'll tell you this now.

00:29:13.400 What they told me is that they were not involved.

00:29:17.200 The actual people doing investigations were not involved with any of what they termed

00:29:20.780 the HR actions of the previous week.

00:29:23.580 So they've been investigating leaks and they have leads, in my opinion, having talked to

00:29:27.700 them.

00:29:28.540 Um, but they were not involved in the three of us being, being put on leave or fired.

00:29:33.480 It wasn't their decision.

00:29:34.780 No, it wasn't their decision.

00:29:35.580 They weren't even looking at us.

00:29:36.900 They got told after that, like, Hey, go.

00:29:39.800 And my one question to them was, I was told by people that I know in the white house that

00:29:45.100 the secretary said that he had evidence and I wanted to know, like, what is that evidence?

00:29:50.800 And they said, we had not been handed any evidence to start.

00:29:55.160 Now they didn't read me my rights.

00:29:56.880 It was a super informal conversation.

00:29:59.040 Um, I, I offered them to take a polygraph.

00:30:02.140 I offered them to take my phone.

00:30:03.900 I told them I did not leak anything.

00:30:05.720 I did not leak anything classified or unclassified to the media.

00:30:10.080 I've not had a single conversation with the media that wasn't on the record sanctioned

00:30:14.740 by public affairs since I started at the department.

00:30:17.440 No texting, no emailing, no communications at all.

00:30:20.080 Nothing.

00:30:20.420 I've had people email me and I just send them to the press sec, the, my other guy at deputy's

00:30:26.000 office.

00:30:26.280 He was like the public affairs guy.

00:30:27.980 That's it.

00:30:28.540 And have you been told by Dan Caldwell or Darren that they leaked?

00:30:34.660 I've been told that neither leaked.

00:30:36.740 And honestly, I don't know them super well, but I can tell you that Darren, um, Darren's

00:30:43.540 job was workforce and culture.

00:30:47.260 Darren did not sit in any of the, like the things that you just read off there on the,

00:30:50.640 on, from the news.

00:30:51.460 Like Panama attack plans.

00:30:52.980 Darren didn't sit in any of those meetings.

00:30:54.680 Darren probably doesn't even know what the hell's going on there.

00:30:57.300 And so I can assure you that Darren did not leak any of those things.

00:31:00.000 I truly believe that.

00:31:01.020 But Dan would have had access to those.

00:31:02.220 Dan would have access to every one of those things, uh, or, you know, maybe half of them.

00:31:06.200 He would have had access.

00:31:07.300 I know Dan now and I work with him pretty closely.

00:31:09.920 I do not think that Dan leaked either.

00:31:11.440 And I heard him say it on Tucker that he did not leak any classified information related

00:31:15.260 to any of this stuff.

00:31:16.200 And I believe him.

00:31:17.040 He never told you that he leaked?

00:31:18.820 No.

00:31:19.520 He denied to you that he leaked?

00:31:21.320 Well, so yeah, he denied to me exactly.

00:31:23.880 But what, what happened was I was on the way back from the white house.

00:31:27.300 I was at a meeting and I was with the CIO and somebody texted me a tweet and said,

00:31:33.080 call him.

00:31:33.380 I was escorted out.

00:31:34.920 And so my first thought was, um, well, my first thought was like, shit, maybe he leaked

00:31:39.440 something, honestly.

00:31:41.260 And, uh, I got back to the office and I was, and people were kind of like, yeah, it was a

00:31:45.100 talk of the office.

00:31:46.420 Um, but there wasn't really any information.

00:31:49.700 I went to a play with my wife.

00:31:52.060 I think I told you just, I went to a play, Annie, and in the middle of the play, I got

00:31:55.460 a message from someone is, or maybe someone sent me a link.

00:31:58.780 I don't even know.

00:31:59.240 It was Darren.

00:31:59.900 Darren is now escorted out.

00:32:01.800 So I immediately got really suspicious at that point.

00:32:04.560 It's like, this doesn't make sense.

00:32:06.360 Uh, I didn't think Dan would leak, but I know Darren didn't leak.

00:32:10.360 And then I, I got messages from friends of mine on the Senate Armed Services Committee

00:32:14.860 towards the end of the play that said, Hey, a reporter called us and said that you're the

00:32:18.480 next person on the list.

00:32:19.780 And so, you know, I'm showing my wife and my wife's like, Hey, do you want to stay?

00:32:22.620 I'm like, no, the sun's going to come out tomorrow.

00:32:24.080 We're going to, we're finishing this play.

00:32:25.540 Right.

00:32:26.060 And so I get home, I called Darren and Darren said, Hey, this is kind of what happened to

00:32:30.140 me.

00:32:30.320 The two guys with canes came and they were super nice about it.

00:32:33.340 And he's like, I heard your next.

00:32:35.280 And so I'm like, yeah, I just heard the same thing.

00:32:37.360 I messaged my boss and said, Hey, I heard I'm next.

00:32:39.780 From the Senate Armed Services Committee, heard from a reporter.

00:32:41.920 And he, he kind of was like, nah, it's not true.

00:32:44.520 And then of course the next day I go in.

00:32:46.380 So I was kind of prepared for it.

00:32:47.640 I wasn't shocked or frustrated.

00:32:50.280 I just, you know, I was as nice as I could be to these guys.

00:32:54.960 I gave one of them a ride.

00:32:56.920 One of the cane.

00:32:57.820 Yeah.

00:32:58.280 He had to, he had to go like all the way down to the gate and I didn't want him to

00:33:01.380 have to walk all the way back.

00:33:03.140 So I gave him a ride around the Pentagon and dropped.

00:33:05.040 Oh, wow.

00:33:05.700 Yeah.

00:33:06.460 So you left the building having no idea why you got fired.

00:33:10.840 No, I knew I didn't leak anything.

00:33:12.300 So I knew it wasn't that.

00:33:13.220 And to this day, has anybody told you why you got fired?

00:33:16.380 The only, the best thing I know is what Joe told the reporter, which is we were fired

00:33:21.460 because he thinks that we created.

00:33:24.440 Back to Joe Casper, the chief of staff.

00:33:26.060 I mean, he literally said, this is why they were fired.

00:33:28.100 So that's the best I've got.

00:33:29.840 Suggesting that you were the leakers.

00:33:31.180 Correct.

00:33:31.640 Yeah.

00:33:31.980 On an IG into him, uh, where I can show for sure that we did not leak that.

00:33:38.200 I mean, I talked to Dan and Dan wasn't like, oh yeah, that IG, like he didn't know what

00:33:43.360 I was talking about.

00:33:43.980 Sorry.

00:33:44.380 Just to clear that up.

00:33:45.640 Joe Casper says you guys leaked or suggested that he was the subject of an IG investigation.

00:33:52.480 We're not, he didn't say that you were the Panama leaker or that you were the Elon leaker.

00:33:56.920 No, he didn't say that.

00:33:57.740 But Pete seems to have suggested it, right?

00:34:00.000 Cause Pete went on Fox in France.

00:34:01.480 I forgive me for just calling him Pete every time.

00:34:03.760 You know, we're, I know a long time.

00:34:05.600 Secretary hangs up to me, but to other people.

00:34:07.420 I mean, no disrespect.

00:34:08.520 Yeah.

00:34:08.880 To Dan and Darren, he's Pete.

00:34:10.440 Yeah.

00:34:10.700 To myself and Deputy Feinberg, he's the secretary, secretary hangs up, but he's Pete.

00:34:16.480 And, and so, yeah, the reason I'm here today, quite frankly, is because, um, I feel wrongly

00:34:22.880 accused.

00:34:23.960 Uh, I know for certain I did not leak anything.

00:34:26.180 I know for certain I didn't do anything else that's criminal either.

00:34:29.760 And after his interview on Fox and friends this week, I felt like one, I'm being told

00:34:37.420 I can't talk about my investigation, but he is directing investigation and on national

00:34:42.000 television, basically saying everyone were criminal or maybe not.

00:34:45.000 Maybe we're going to be exonerated.

00:34:46.000 I don't know.

00:34:46.380 It was kind of a, a, a bit of a, it was hard to interpret what was going on.

00:34:50.640 Um, yeah, I'm here because I want the American public to know the truth.

00:34:55.800 I think that your viewers, you've got a lot of viewers and I think this is a good medium

00:34:59.280 to do that.

00:35:00.400 And I think from the truth, I will be able to show that I am innocent and hopefully be

00:35:05.980 publicly exonerated.

00:35:06.940 Which is really what I'm looking for.

00:35:08.320 And I'm also hoping that we all learn some lessons from this because we've got another

00:35:13.680 three and a half years here and potentially more.

00:35:16.380 And there are some, how to build a team and people type lessons that we need to learn.

00:35:21.980 And if the secretary is going to be successful going forward, if he's not going to be the

00:35:25.820 secretary and there's going to be somebody else, like we need to learn how to build a

00:35:28.200 team to accomplish the president's agenda.

00:35:30.800 The three of us are not deep state.

00:35:33.160 We're not disgruntled former employees.

00:35:35.560 Like two of these people are very good friends with the secretary.

00:35:39.400 And I'm just a person that literally up into my entire life to come back into the department,

00:35:43.900 gave up a great job, gave up seeing my eight month old kid during daylight hours, seven days

00:35:49.920 a week to, to actually try and deliver what the president wants.

00:35:53.020 And so, yeah, I'm here to kind of get that message out.

00:35:55.860 You feel betrayed?

00:35:57.500 I don't feel betrayed.

00:35:58.580 No, I think Dan and Darren definitely do.

00:36:01.000 I'm not, I wasn't that close to the secretary, so I don't feel betrayed.

00:36:04.500 No, I feel frustrated, but not betrayed.

00:36:06.920 When you saw Pico on Fox and Friends and, you know, kind of made it clear what he thinks

00:36:12.440 happened.

00:36:12.920 Here's, I'm going to play just a little bit.

00:36:14.360 So people, people know how he sounded because we were, he was talking about the terrible press

00:36:20.500 that he's been hit with since you guys got fired.

00:36:22.820 And here it is in SOT 34.

00:36:24.160 What a big surprise that a bunch of, uh, a few leakers get fired and suddenly a bunch

00:36:31.320 of hit pieces come out.

00:36:32.300 They take anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees, and then they try to slash

00:36:37.560 and burn people and ruin their reputations.

00:36:39.980 Not going to work with me because we're changing the defense department, putting the Pentagon

00:36:45.380 back in the hands of warfighters and anonymous smears from disgruntled former employees on old

00:36:50.440 news, doesn't matter.

00:36:53.080 So that was on Monday at the White House at the Easter egg roll.

00:36:56.580 And then he doubled down and went further on Fox and Friends the next day, which I'll

00:36:59.520 play.

00:37:00.260 But are you disgruntled?

00:37:02.460 No, I'm not disgruntled.

00:37:04.620 I actually want to go back.

00:37:06.180 I very much want to go back and work with Steve.

00:37:09.180 It's been an awesome 90 days.

00:37:10.980 I think that we have a great next three and a half years in front of us to deliver what

00:37:14.440 the president wants.

00:37:15.940 You know, I'm the type of person, if you ask people that know me, I'm very confident in

00:37:19.540 my own abilities to solve problems if I am part of the solution.

00:37:22.900 And I really want to go back.

00:37:25.020 I don't know if they'll take me.

00:37:25.840 I know there's a path back or not, but that's what I want.

00:37:28.200 Well, I mean, he did seem to suggest, you know, this could come out a different way.

00:37:32.860 Like maybe they did it or maybe it was someone else.

00:37:36.860 So there seems to be a window there on like who actually did the leaking.

00:37:42.240 Here he is on Fox and Friends on Tuesday, SOT 32.

00:37:45.800 For a series of serious leaks at the Pentagon, which there were.

00:37:49.540 Panama Canal plans, Elon Musk's visit, you name it, any number of things.

00:37:56.560 And there's four, five, six, seven things.

00:37:58.440 We said enough is enough.

00:38:00.080 We're going to we're going to launch a leak investigation, which we did, which was then

00:38:04.660 handed over to OSI, which is the special investigators here at DOD.

00:38:08.280 If one or two of these guys is exonerated after an investigation.

00:38:12.320 Great.

00:38:13.000 That's what investigations are for.

00:38:14.760 But we took it seriously.

00:38:16.280 Obviously, it led to some unfortunate places, people I have known for quite some time, but

00:38:20.660 it's not my job to protect them.

00:38:22.300 It's my job to protect national security, the president of the United States.

00:38:27.580 What's your response to that?

00:38:28.660 Um, I think that there are leakers and I think that there is a leak investigation.

00:38:35.280 I do not think that leak investigation involved us until after we were terminated.

00:38:39.760 I think that if there's a path to be exonerated, we should have been placed on an administrative

00:38:43.900 leave and investigated.

00:38:45.240 And I would have been totally comfortable with that.

00:38:46.900 And I would have talked to OSI and done all the things I said I would do.

00:38:50.360 I think the others would as well.

00:38:51.500 So why would they have pinned it on you and your two buddies that we've been mentioning

00:38:57.620 if you guys didn't do it?

00:38:58.840 I don't think that, that anybody actually pinned anything on us.

00:39:03.200 I think that we are, the easiest way to get rid of us was to say, hey, it's part of this

00:39:08.440 leak investigation.

00:39:09.440 I actually think that Joe probably believes whatever he told Ryan Grimm.

00:39:14.780 Like he probably thinks that whatever version of email or phone call thing, he thinks that

00:39:20.280 that's what happened.

00:39:20.940 That you tried to get him in trouble.

00:39:23.160 Yeah.

00:39:23.380 I have to believe that he actually thinks that.

00:39:25.380 Now, maybe he just hasn't looked at like the logical sequence of events.

00:39:28.920 And this is my problem is just call us in and ask us.

00:39:31.600 And we could have said, literally, here's my email.

00:39:33.800 Well, that would explain you, but not Darren and Dan.

00:39:38.000 Yeah.

00:39:38.220 So what's not public is Darren got a text message from Daniel Lippman right before this all happened.

00:39:45.240 From who?

00:39:45.840 He got a text from Daniel Lippman.

00:39:47.200 So Daniel Lippman.

00:39:47.740 Daniel Lippman.

00:39:48.480 He wasn't texting the whole office.

00:39:49.900 He texted half of my office.

00:39:52.040 He's just persistent.

00:39:54.220 And so Darren got one and went to the secretary on Sunday.

00:39:58.440 So a couple of days before he was put on leave, said, hey, I got something to talk to you about.

00:40:03.240 This is one of them.

00:40:05.520 And I'll say that, I'll let Darren talk about it, but that conversation didn't go very well.

00:40:11.220 There's a blow up and Darren thinks that he got flagged that way.

00:40:14.680 And I think Dan was flagged.

00:40:15.560 He's talked to Pete Hexeth about that email you're saying.

00:40:18.040 He talked about the text message that he got.

00:40:20.560 And Pete got angry with him?

00:40:23.560 You'll have to let Darren tell a story, but there was a blow up on the phone on Sunday.

00:40:27.240 Well, I mean, can you help us understand that at all?

00:40:29.280 Why would the secretary be angry at Darren for receiving a text from Politico?

00:40:33.840 Yeah, I mean, I don't know.

00:40:36.440 I think that that was a super sensitive subject and I don't 100% know why, but when other people in our office got the text message, I just said, don't respond to it and don't tell anybody.

00:40:50.120 Just like, let it die.

00:40:51.580 And Daniel's a persistent guy.

00:40:54.740 What I was told last week is that this is how he operates.

00:40:58.200 He runs political playbook and he just literally blasts everybody and tries to get scoops and then he tries to confirm things and he just runs with stories.

00:41:06.120 So it doesn't surprise me that he was doing it that way.

00:41:08.160 Is there any fairness to the accusation that you guys didn't like this guy, Joe Casper?

00:41:15.940 This is an opportunity, Politico sniffing around him.

00:41:19.360 They're saying there might be this investigation, whether there is or isn't.

00:41:22.600 This is our chance to bring it to Pete and be like, the guy's a problem.

00:41:26.160 Well, I mean, the reporter had a scoop.

00:41:30.280 It wasn't us that gave him the scoop, in my opinion.

00:41:32.820 Um, I can tell you that the other two have talked to the secretary directly about Joe months before this.

00:41:40.820 The White House has talked to the secretary about Joe before this.

00:41:44.600 Um, I have not, I didn't have that kind of relationship, but we've all talked internally in the, in the deputy's office about, hey, how do we work this?

00:41:53.720 How do we work with this person?

00:41:55.400 So I don't think it was a secret here.

00:41:57.280 Now, whatever the IG was about, like, I don't actually know the details of that, but I've read about it in the press.

00:42:02.460 I've read what Joe said on the record.

00:42:04.280 Well, do we believe there is or was an IG actually looking into Joe?

00:42:07.360 I mean, I think Joe confirmed on the record that there was an IG and it was, uh, drug usulated.

00:42:12.180 It sounds to me like it was an insane, uh, IG report and probably was some version of a weaponization of the IG, but I don't know that to be certain.

00:42:19.700 And Joe Casper's denying that he uses drugs.

00:42:21.840 He volunteered to Ryan Grimm to take a drug test for 45 days if Ryan would pay for the test.

00:42:26.500 But he said, there's no way to, I could fake, uh, um, cause he passed the drug test.

00:42:30.840 He says, uh, he said that I don't, I couldn't fake that and nor do I have a life like this.

00:42:34.820 He said, my life should be so exciting that I'm doing drugs.

00:42:37.820 Right.

00:42:38.540 And that's everything that he said.

00:42:40.220 Okay.

00:42:40.500 So we do believe that there was some sort of an IG, if it's not an official investigation, it was either ramping up or they were kicking the tires around Joe Casper.

00:42:48.660 And it seems clear he was blaming you and also possibly Darren.

00:42:53.480 Correct.

00:42:54.260 That's what, from what he said, that is actually the reason I believe that we were put on leave.

00:42:58.620 And how about Dan?

00:42:59.580 How does Dan get sucked in?

00:43:00.680 Dan was CC'd on the email that I sent.

00:43:02.940 And Joe thinks that that email was meant to go to a reporter or the reporter was also CC'd.

00:43:10.620 I mean, he had some weird stories.

00:43:11.500 Just to be clear, this is, you sent the email after Daniel Lipman of Politico emailed you or texted you.

00:43:16.020 Right.

00:43:16.220 And you sent an email to Sean Parnell, the comms guy.

00:43:19.400 Correct.

00:43:19.800 At the Pentagon to say, hey, this happened, you know.

00:43:22.420 Yeah.

00:43:22.820 Now what?

00:43:23.420 Or let me know.

00:43:24.320 Right.

00:43:24.880 I didn't talk to him.

00:43:26.100 Correct.

00:43:26.360 And his theory, as bows to Ryan Grimm, is that you mistakenly sent that to Sean, even though it is addressed to Sean.

00:43:35.340 And it's obviously sent to Sean.

00:43:38.220 And it lays out exactly what happened.

00:43:40.260 So I don't totally understand the you misfired it to Sean.

00:43:43.920 I don't know where he got that.

00:43:45.000 He also, there was a version of the story that he told that was that I sent the email prior to IG existing.

00:43:51.360 And therefore, I knew about it before it existed.

00:43:54.800 Like, I have no idea when the IG started.

00:43:58.040 I'm pretty sure that is a very easily verifiable fact that you can ask the IG.

00:44:03.060 And then they'll say the date was before April 3rd or 4th, whenever that call was.

00:44:07.360 Do you believe his denial on the drugs?

00:44:11.720 I will say this.

00:44:12.940 I don't know if Joe uses drugs or not.

00:44:15.860 I don't know.

00:44:17.020 Did you ever suspect that?

00:44:18.480 No, but I also don't know what drug users look like and how they act.

00:44:22.480 I can say that Joe was super erratic and he would be totally normal in one thing and then totally not normal in another thing within the same 30-minute period.

00:44:32.520 But I have no idea.

00:44:33.800 I've been told by other people, like, that seems like a mannerism of a substance abuser.

00:44:38.460 But I don't know, and I'm not going to allege that here.

00:44:40.780 And again, he's denying that he uses drugs and is telling Ryan Grimm that he passed a drug test and has not been fired.

00:44:47.900 I mean, he got moved to a different position, but if he had tested positive for drugs, he would have been fired.

00:44:52.580 I'm assuming he would have been fired.

00:44:53.780 Yeah.

00:44:54.360 Okay.

00:44:55.020 So we're not sure.

00:44:55.980 Maybe he's an erratic guy without drugs.

00:44:58.060 That's possible, too.

00:44:59.080 Correct.

00:44:59.380 But in any event, what you're saying is you feel he blamed you for whatever the IG was doing around him and blamed Darren and saw that Dan Caldwell was CC'd on these emails and might have had something to do with it and may not have had a great relationship with those other two either from the start.

00:45:13.940 Yeah.

00:45:14.660 And my understanding is that Dan, prior to all this happening, had gone to the secretary and basically said, I'm out at the end of the month.

00:45:21.740 I can't work with Joe.

00:45:23.500 So, you know, either.

00:45:25.800 Things were coming to a head between those two.

00:45:27.400 Yeah.

00:45:27.600 You want to keep me or you want to keep Joe.

00:45:30.420 But, like, I can't – what he told me was that he said – and this he told me this before any of this happened.

00:45:35.120 I knew about this a month ago.

00:45:37.700 He had said, basically, I'm trying to do the best I can in this job and I'm unable to deliver the results that you need with Joe as chief of staff.

00:45:46.180 And I don't feel like I'm kind of spinning my wheels.

00:45:48.920 So I think he was going to leave anyway.

00:45:51.620 I don't know if he's going to follow through on that, but that's what he told me.

00:45:53.700 Okay.

00:45:55.100 So – but the – where it gets weird is at some point in this time frame, they handed the investigation over to Tim Parlatore, right?

00:46:05.060 Pete's lawyer.

00:46:05.640 Yeah, that's what I've been – that's what I'm told.

00:46:07.320 This is in the press.

00:46:08.100 I actually don't – I'm not a firsthand source on it.

00:46:10.440 I don't know.

00:46:11.200 Okay.

00:46:11.580 But if it's true, what we read in the paper is that Tim Parlatore took over the investigation.

00:46:16.500 This is Pete's longtime personal lawyer and also a Pentagon employee and also one of the members of the private Pete signal – second signal gate to the second signal –

00:46:27.160 Tim was in that chat too.

00:46:28.240 Yeah, the reports are that he was in it, his brother was in it, his wife was in it, and some group of others.

00:46:32.960 But in any event, so if he took it over, that's somebody who doesn't work for Joe Casper, who works for Pete.

00:46:39.640 I mean, now he works for the Pentagon.

00:46:40.840 But, I mean, his loyalties are to the secretary.

00:46:43.320 And my understanding is that's the person who made the call.

00:46:48.000 Like, he was in charge of the investigation at the time.

00:46:50.240 Yeah, I'm not sure.

00:46:51.240 He was determined that he would get fired.

00:46:53.660 Yeah, I'm not – I've heard things about who was kind of in the know on the decisions that were made.

00:46:59.420 It wasn't Joe Casper's call.

00:47:01.100 It was not Joe Casper's call.

00:47:02.320 No, I agree with that.

00:47:03.100 And –

00:47:03.480 And I don't actually know if Tim worked for Joe or the secretary.

00:47:06.380 I mean, everybody who works for Joe, I'm pretty sure, in that office.

00:47:08.720 All the other senior advisors work for Joe.

00:47:10.220 Okay.

00:47:11.040 But –

00:47:11.620 My understanding is Joe was moved to this special governmental status, and he was not – he's not overseeing Tim.

00:47:19.540 Joe was chief of staff until Friday last week.

00:47:22.600 Okay.

00:47:22.940 Yeah.

00:47:23.320 But that's what I mean.

00:47:24.700 Well, that's the day you got fired.

00:47:26.620 He was chief – he was still in the role, I believe, when the letter was signed.

00:47:30.940 Okay.

00:47:31.240 But my understanding is that he didn't run that investigation to the end and that Paralitory took it over.

00:47:38.060 And if that's the case, he must have seen something that disturbed him, right, about you three guys, one or all?

00:47:46.260 I would love to know what it is.

00:47:47.820 You have no idea?

00:47:48.680 None.

00:47:50.160 No clue.

00:47:50.760 You know, I said this on the air, and I have absolutely nothing against Dan Caldwell.

00:47:54.900 He seems like a great guy.

00:47:55.860 Actually, everybody I've talked to about him says he is.

00:47:58.680 But I did think it was a little weird just between us.

00:48:01.440 You know, I thought it was strange that he told Tucker he hadn't been polyed and he – no one looked at his cell phone.

00:48:07.620 But – and I said this on my show.

00:48:09.020 There are a lot of other ways you can catch a leaker.

00:48:11.200 You know, there are so many other electronic trails that you can check, especially in a building like the Pentagon.

00:48:17.580 So how are we ruling out that Dan is a leaker?

00:48:21.580 Yeah.

00:48:23.700 You know, OSI could come in here and give you all the mechanisms that they're using.

00:48:28.100 If you told me, hey, Colin, like, go run an investigation in the leaks.

00:48:31.580 Here are the five or six leaks we care about.

00:48:33.220 I would have started and said, what is a leak where the information can be tied directly to, like, a certain document or series of documents?

00:48:43.700 Panama, I think, is the one.

00:48:44.960 Yep.

00:48:45.220 And I'm pretty sure that –

00:48:45.860 More plans.

00:48:47.120 But also, around the time that that leak happened, there was some time before, maybe a day or two before,

00:48:54.220 there was a meeting in the Pentagon that the secretary took with Southcom and some others.

00:48:58.100 Where we talked about the plan.

00:49:00.320 And then the leak happened.

00:49:02.560 And the secretary – my understanding is that he thought that somebody in the room or on the call was involved in the leak based on what he read.

00:49:11.880 Now, I was in that meeting.

00:49:13.400 And I read what was in the news.

00:49:15.320 And I actually thought, like, the news didn't get what we got.

00:49:18.820 They got something else.

00:49:20.820 My gut instinct is that there was some kind of upstream preliminary document that had been created as a part of the process to staff this meeting and build the plan.

00:49:31.860 And somebody leaked that.

00:49:33.500 So what NBC News had was not as advanced as what you guys had gotten to.

00:49:38.520 Trust me, they're – you know, I'm not going to say anything that I shouldn't say.

00:49:42.800 But had they had the plan that we got, I think it would have been a more juicy, explosive story.

00:49:46.660 Let's put that away.

00:49:46.880 Okay.

00:49:47.160 It would have gone everywhere.

00:49:47.760 And so I would have said, okay, let's focus on the people that may have been – like, let's find that document so we can actually find what she said.

00:49:56.980 And then what – you know, where's the document that said those exact things?

00:50:00.600 And then who had that saved on their desktop?

00:50:03.500 It's probably secret, maybe top secret document.

00:50:06.400 Who opened it?

00:50:07.460 Who printed it?

00:50:08.240 Who was editing it?

00:50:09.240 Who was emailing it around?

00:50:10.380 And I would, like, narrow the pull down to that group of people.

00:50:12.600 Yes.

00:50:13.400 My guess is that Air Force OSI is probably doing exactly that.

00:50:16.640 I don't know, but these guys are professionals, and they're probably looking at exactly that.

00:50:20.260 And they may – there may be three or four other leaks where they could narrow it down that way, too.

00:50:26.120 I do not think that the secretary – like, the deputy's office is not involved in that kind of level of upstream work, right?

00:50:31.600 We're staffing final products to the deputy secretary's office, staffing final products to the secretary.

00:50:37.440 So I highly doubt that that upstream thing somehow wound its way into the secretary's office.

00:50:44.820 I doubt that.

00:50:45.440 So, I mean, yeah, could – is it possible?

00:50:48.960 Like, yeah, there's a million ways you could leak things.

00:50:52.020 Most of those ways, you know, if you wanted to get information out, you just use your personal phone because FISA doesn't apply because you're not a foreign national.

00:50:59.540 And, you know, they have to have some kind of probable cause to seize your phone, unless you want to voluntarily give it over, to seize your phone and search it.

00:51:07.060 It's a warrant.

00:51:07.720 You have to get a warrant.

00:51:08.340 So that's what I would have done.

00:51:10.740 So I actually think what Dan said is they didn't come to say, look at that.

00:51:14.100 Like, there wasn't enough probable cause at that point.

00:51:16.000 Now, your point was, well, it's a nascent investigation.

00:51:19.860 And what I learned from OSI is, like, there wasn't even – we weren't even looking at us yet.

00:51:23.140 So by the time we got fired, Air Force OSI wasn't involved.

00:51:26.260 Now I think they are.

00:51:27.780 And we'll see how it plays out.

00:51:30.460 Dan said he hadn't given over his phone.

00:51:33.220 He hadn't given over – he hadn't been asked to give his phone and he hadn't been polygraphed.

00:51:37.340 But do you know whether Dan received a visit from any investigators or from the Pentagon asking for electronics back?

00:51:45.360 My understanding is that Air Force OSI has only talked to me because that's – I reached out to them and basically said, please come.

00:51:55.160 Now, we all had to go turn our electronics in.

00:51:58.940 So, like, I drove back the same day and handed in my laptop and my secret phone and all my stuff.

00:52:04.280 I believe that Dan had, like, a whole safe and stuff at his house.

00:52:08.140 I did not – I was in the middle of renovation, so I never got a safe installed, so I didn't have to deal with that.

00:52:12.720 I do think people came and probably took that safe back at some point.

00:52:16.540 Do you know whether he did that willingly on the first visit?

00:52:22.320 Yeah, I'm pretty sure they came and he just handed it over.

00:52:25.060 Do you know whether there's a warrant involved?

00:52:27.640 No, there wouldn't be a warrant for that.

00:52:29.240 Well, there would be if he refused, potentially.

00:52:32.240 To hand over his safe?

00:52:34.460 I mean, he's no longer a government employee, so.

00:52:36.920 I mean, if he's got Pentagon electronics and didn't willingly give them, they'd have to step it up and get some sort of subpoena or search warrant.

00:52:47.380 That's correct, yeah.

00:52:48.600 I don't know if he's subpoena or search warrant.

00:52:50.060 They'd probably just, like, break his door down and take it because it's their property.

00:52:52.940 That you'd probably know about.

00:52:54.520 Yeah, I think so.

00:52:55.180 So, have you talked to him at all about, like, how many times they've come and whether he's voluntarily given over all electronics and so on?

00:53:02.600 I just know that they came and took his safe and whatever other things he had.

00:53:06.020 Okay.

00:53:06.600 He may have driven his electronics back like I did.

00:53:09.000 I don't know.

00:53:09.580 Mm-hmm.

00:53:09.880 I mean, those would be interesting questions to have answered because, you know, if there's any sort of a reluctance to give over this one device, right?

00:53:18.860 This is how investigations go down, right?

00:53:20.780 I agree.

00:53:21.300 Is there anything, is there any device that you have in your possession that you would not give if they want it?

00:53:26.340 Not a single one.

00:53:27.320 You wouldn't make them get a warrant?

00:53:28.920 You'd hand it all over?

00:53:30.000 Correct.

00:53:30.560 Including your cell phone?

00:53:31.400 Correct.

00:53:32.620 I mean, that's uncomfortable, right?

00:53:34.180 No one wants anybody looking through their cell phone.

00:53:36.460 Yeah, I agree with that.

00:53:37.320 Even if you didn't leak anything?

00:53:38.540 Correct.

00:53:38.880 It's just, you know, do you worry that if you did that, they'd be, like, nitpicking now looking for-

00:53:43.800 No, I don't think so.

00:53:45.220 Justifications after the fact?

00:53:46.620 I don't think so.

00:53:47.300 I think I'm innocent and I don't think I violated any other crimes either.

00:53:51.180 So, I don't think so.

00:53:52.700 Well, that's good.

00:53:53.780 Hopefully, I mean, will they?

00:53:54.760 Do you think they will?

00:53:56.240 Come get my phone or ask for my phone?

00:53:57.780 Yeah.

00:53:58.280 I mean, I told the guys, like, you know, if you want to polygraph me and get my stuff, set it up.

00:54:03.140 And they said, basically, we'll have to go get permission or something like that.

00:54:06.560 So, I haven't heard from them in a week.

00:54:08.380 Have you ever heard of something like this where somebody gets fired without getting polygraphed?

00:54:11.360 Like, for alleged, something as serious as leaking top secret documents?

00:54:15.020 Honestly, I've never, I don't know.

00:54:17.260 I'm not an investigator, so I'm not sure if polygraphs are involved or not.

00:54:20.200 I can tell you polygraphs aren't the most admissible thing in court from what I've been told.

00:54:24.260 So, I'm not 100% sure.

00:54:25.920 But I think it's a good starting point, at least to see, hey, is somebody, you know, I've been polygraphed before as a part of my job.

00:54:33.760 Yes, I have.

00:54:34.240 Yeah, and, you know, it's a stressful experience, but, like, they can interpret the results and tell you if you're lying or not, I'm pretty sure.

00:54:41.420 They've done enough of these.

00:54:43.040 Yeah.

00:54:43.220 There was a report in NBC News earlier this week that Dan Caldwell and Darren Selnick, the other two, had already been exonerated in this investigation.

00:54:56.020 Did you read that?

00:54:57.080 I didn't read that, no.

00:54:58.680 Do you have any reason to believe that's true?

00:55:00.420 Uh, I have no idea what's going on, quite frankly, so I don't know.

00:55:05.440 Do you think there's any chance they're working together and you're going to be left the fall guy?

00:55:11.220 No, I don't think there's, there's no conspiracy here.

00:55:14.280 It's not like, hey, we all conspired to do a thing.

00:55:16.660 Like, I, it's not true.

00:55:18.800 Like, we didn't, I worked with Dan and Darren on work stuff where I would call them and say, hey, we need this memo done.

00:55:26.180 Or how do we want to, how do we think the secretary appeals about X thing?

00:55:30.160 Or for Dan, it's like, dude, I need to get a whole joke and somebody please get him for me.

00:55:34.380 That's it.

00:55:35.520 So you haven't, since you got fired, have the three of you been working together on dealing with media?

00:55:41.760 We have, we have, we have talked, but no, I'd say everyone's kind of doing their own thing.

00:55:45.640 Dan got a lawyer.

00:55:46.720 That's why he's not here today.

00:55:48.120 Darren got a lawyer yesterday, which is also why he decided not to come today.

00:55:51.360 Yeah.

00:55:52.100 I got my dad, uh, on a retainer for a buck.

00:55:54.500 He probably would have told me you're an idiot for doing this, but, uh, I mean, you're a lawyer,

00:55:59.600 so you, you know, more than I do, but I didn't do anything wrong.

00:56:02.620 So that helps.

00:56:03.840 Yeah, it does.

00:56:04.540 That helps a lot.

00:56:05.440 I mean, I've told a lot of people like, don't do it.

00:56:08.060 If you're, if you're guilty, it's, it's really not in your best interest.

00:56:11.340 Yeah.

00:56:11.940 Um, when I'm advising, you know, friends who get asked for, uh, interviews and so on the, um,

00:56:16.580 the, the leaks against Pete that post date, these triple firings have been numerous.

00:56:28.220 So the one I saw, so like my, the deputy's office does primarily resourcing, which is like

00:56:35.480 programming and budget and then execution of the budget.

00:56:39.160 So at the program level, like, can we build a Virginia class submarine or not on time at

00:56:44.040 cost or not?

00:56:45.000 That's really what we do.

00:56:46.140 We also facilitate the rest of the department, but that's what, that's what we do.

00:56:48.720 I can tell you having just spent the last 90 days building the 2026 budget, of which there

00:56:54.000 are numerous sensitive things in there that would upset people if they got loose in the

00:56:58.640 world, that none of that got loose.

00:57:01.260 The only thing that I saw was the AmeriCom like merge of Northcom and Southcom that was

00:57:08.140 in a news article at some point.

00:57:09.580 And that was in a budget document.

00:57:11.420 Well, the, the leak to the New York times of the second signal chat came post firing.

00:57:17.740 And my understanding is Darren and Dan were both on that chain.

00:57:23.200 I read the article.

00:57:24.220 He said he had four people from that chain.

00:57:26.340 I said, the article said there were 13 people in the chain.

00:57:29.360 So two of the four were unemployed.

00:57:32.540 I don't know if John Elliott was in that chain or not.

00:57:34.640 I don't know who the 13 were.

00:57:35.180 We haven't talked about him, but he's, he worked over in the comp shop too.

00:57:38.740 He's the one we mentioned in the passing, but he says he left off his own volition and

00:57:42.640 Pete said they fired him.

00:57:44.380 So he resigned.

00:57:47.780 Maybe he was forced to resign.

00:57:49.300 I don't know the details, but it's a better term than fired.

00:57:52.480 Yeah.

00:57:52.680 I do think it was a petty move to take what John had put out in the press and said, Hey,

00:57:57.320 we're part of ways.

00:57:58.780 So I know we fired him.

00:57:59.840 Like that doesn't make any sense to me like that again is an example of just the staff

00:58:03.700 advising you poorly.

00:58:04.860 Is that how it went down?

00:58:06.000 Yes.

00:58:06.240 He put out a generic statement saying, I'm leaving.

00:58:09.740 And I think he's put out a generic statement like, Hey, it was great.

00:58:11.680 I decided to move on.

00:58:12.740 They didn't let him save face.

00:58:14.140 Right.

00:58:14.580 Okay.

00:58:15.000 And then he wrote the piece in political.

00:58:16.640 I think he got upset.

00:58:17.800 Yeah.

00:58:18.340 I mean, that's not really where you go when you're team MAGA to be right.

00:58:22.660 I agree.

00:58:23.320 I don't know why you went to political.

00:58:24.460 I've actually never met John Elliott.

00:58:25.980 I passed him the hallway.

00:58:27.380 He's been in a meeting once or twice with me, but I've never actually said, even said hi to

00:58:30.640 him.

00:58:30.720 So it's just coincidental that he went at the same time you guys went.

00:58:33.080 Yeah, it's coincidental.

00:58:33.800 It's very strange.

00:58:35.060 So do you know if he was on that private signal chain?

00:58:38.180 I don't know.

00:58:39.100 I would venture to guess the answer is no, but I don't know.

00:58:45.320 What did you think of how Pete seemed in his Fox and Friends interview?

00:58:52.140 Yeah, I don't think he prepared.

00:58:53.940 And honestly, I think that it was probably a bad move to do that.

00:58:56.900 I understand why his team is advising him to do it.

00:58:59.460 But, you know, he has an audience of one.

00:59:02.960 It's the president of the United States.

00:59:05.040 And he wanted to appear combative and he wanted to appear forceful.

00:59:10.260 I'm not sure what message he really got across.

00:59:12.340 Am I a leaker?

00:59:13.680 Is it possibly exonerated?

00:59:14.780 You fired me.

00:59:15.380 Like, I honestly don't know.

00:59:17.380 And we've had no official communications from anybody besides the Air Force officers

00:59:21.280 that came to me because I asked them to come.

00:59:24.120 The Air Force guys.

00:59:24.980 Yeah.

00:59:25.260 None of the other guys have had anything.

00:59:26.640 So I'm not 100% sure.

00:59:28.020 I, and what I think of it, I don't know, just to me, it's an example of people on the staff

00:59:34.980 that are giving him bad advice.

00:59:36.940 I thought the signal gate response when he deplaned from the plane in Hawaii was a terrible

00:59:42.660 eye.

00:59:43.100 If you look at who is in the background there, you have Sean Parnell and Joe Casper right

00:59:46.220 in the frame.

00:59:47.100 Then he's out there yelling about how it wasn't war plans.

00:59:49.500 It wasn't classified.

00:59:50.080 All he literally needed to say was, I'm the secretary of defense.

00:59:54.040 I got an email from General Carrillo that was secret and I am an original classification

00:59:58.560 authority and I declassified portions of it and provided it to the cabinet team because

01:00:03.560 I needed them aware of certain things.

01:00:05.760 Yeah.

01:00:05.980 Guess what?

01:00:06.420 On a text thread, somebody else started.

01:00:07.760 100% illegal.

01:00:08.940 Or sorry, 100% legal.

01:00:10.220 He is an OCA.

01:00:11.420 He can't do exactly that.

01:00:12.960 And explain it all away.

01:00:14.440 The problem is that the people that were advising him don't even know what an original

01:00:18.080 classification authority is.

01:00:19.120 They never heard of it.

01:00:19.900 It wasn't something that they could have suggested because the team he has isn't, they're not

01:00:24.100 like people that know what to do.

01:00:25.920 They don't know how to protect him.

01:00:26.860 Right.

01:00:27.820 Which could lead to a lot of frustration on his part.

01:00:30.380 Do you, do you think he's okay?

01:00:33.160 You know, do you think Pete is okay?

01:00:35.580 Yeah.

01:00:36.060 I honestly, I don't know.

01:00:37.560 I'm not sure.

01:00:38.060 I have observed a Pete that is one Pete and crushes it in meetings.

01:00:46.000 For example, this is out in the press.

01:00:49.500 They did like a little blog post on it, but the House Freedom Caucus came to talk to us

01:00:54.420 about budget.

01:00:55.260 It was a breakfast.

01:00:56.080 They all came.

01:00:57.100 It was super interesting.

01:00:57.960 Their, their bus hit a, hit like a signpost on the way in and shattered some windows.

01:01:02.240 So they were super late, but they all came in.

01:01:03.500 They're super excited to be there.

01:01:04.920 Well, I've never been in the Pentagon before.

01:01:06.220 These are people that want to spend less.

01:01:08.860 They want a strong national security.

01:01:11.500 They want a strong defense, but they don't want us to have a big budget.

01:01:14.040 And they, they're afraid that if we go up, domestic spending goes up and, you know, everything

01:01:17.980 falls apart from their ability to balance the budget.

01:01:21.100 Secretary crushed that meeting.

01:01:22.940 I've never seen a meeting like that.

01:01:25.240 There is not a secretary in living memory that could have done as good a job with those

01:01:28.400 guys.

01:01:28.920 He was, it was informal.

01:01:30.540 He was super direct.

01:01:31.700 He was very transparent and they left.

01:01:33.920 I could tell you they let, it was like the best trip they've probably ever been on in

01:01:37.400 all year.

01:01:39.060 At the same time, I've seen the secretary in more internal meetings where he is super focused

01:01:44.960 on like very, in my opinion, weird details and very agitated and kind of like yelling

01:01:51.580 and just nothing's good.

01:01:53.400 So it's like a tale of two Pete's and I'll be honest, I'm not the person to ask about

01:01:59.360 what he was like before and all that.

01:02:01.080 I don't know.

01:02:01.860 I'm just telling you what I observed in the 90 days that I was there.

01:02:04.980 Was there like a particular point at which his agitation stepped up?

01:02:10.600 Yeah.

01:02:10.860 I think, you know, roughly it was around the time of signal gate, maybe, maybe before when

01:02:16.300 some of these leaks started there, there was a, a, a focus on the leaks.

01:02:21.380 So don't get me wrong, like leaking is bad and there are leakers and we should try to

01:02:25.240 catch them, especially when it comes to classified things.

01:02:28.120 I'm mostly concerned about leaks that lead to like true OPSEC concerns where there are

01:02:33.500 us service members lives at stake and maybe less of the like policy stuff.

01:02:37.940 But, but if the policy thing sinks a negotiation or something like that, like this is critical

01:02:41.800 that we don't do that and we should find those people.

01:02:44.260 And I don't think that those people are people that the Trump admin brought in on the

01:02:48.160 team.

01:02:48.660 I don't think it's Dan.

01:02:49.700 I don't think it's Darren.

01:02:50.140 At least anybody else that's a political, my personal opinion, we're aligned on the

01:02:54.860 mission.

01:02:55.180 We all want the same thing.

01:02:58.480 He was very focused on the leaks.

01:03:00.780 And honestly, I think it's kind of like consumed the team a little bit.

01:03:04.400 Like if you look at a pie chart of, of the secretary's day at this point, 50% of it's

01:03:09.160 probably leak investigation press.

01:03:11.460 Like it's that, like that can't be, that is a bad thing for America.

01:03:15.220 It's a bad thing for the president's objectives.

01:03:17.840 And then in order to kind of combat an image, it's, Hey, we're going to go do work out with

01:03:23.320 the troops.

01:03:23.720 I'm a troop.

01:03:24.800 As a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps, I thought that was the fucking coolest thing

01:03:27.620 in the world.

01:03:28.280 The secretary of defense is out doing pushups with me as a midshipman.

01:03:30.960 When he went to the Naval Academy, like, hell yes, I would have been screaming on the side

01:03:34.820 too.

01:03:36.480 However, I think I've matured a little bit to the point where I realized that while that

01:03:40.100 is important and it's a thing to do and get out there because it helps with recruiting

01:03:43.520 and just helps like with morale, you know, if you're taking a half day trip to the Naval

01:03:48.740 Academy at the same time, the budget is due and we really need some support here.

01:03:51.960 Like, come on, you got to weigh priorities.

01:03:54.260 And so I don't know.

01:03:55.780 I mean, when you ask, he's okay.

01:03:56.780 I don't know.

01:03:58.000 I'm not sure.

01:03:58.840 I wish I could definitely say he's totally fine, but I don't know.

01:04:01.980 That's so unfortunate.

01:04:03.440 That whole signal gate thing was, I mean, I just don't even think it was Pete's fault.

01:04:07.180 It was like, obviously Mike Walls's office committed a colossal error and those on the

01:04:14.020 chat, I guess technically should have known they shouldn't have been having this discussion

01:04:17.320 on signal, but it seems to me like they use signal and that the previous administration

01:04:21.740 had signal on the computers and it was like, no one was really seeing this as an insecure

01:04:25.860 channel, even though.

01:04:27.660 I'll be honest with you, you go to Ukraine, like they're fighting off signal.

01:04:30.620 Yeah.

01:04:31.020 So it is, is the rule.

01:04:34.300 Hey, don't put sensitive information on signal.

01:04:36.020 Absolutely.

01:04:36.460 It is.

01:04:36.960 Was the information classified?

01:04:38.200 Like probably as an intel officer, I'd say my personal opinion is, yeah, it was classified.

01:04:42.300 However, secretary can just say, I declassified it.

01:04:44.880 Yeah, exactly.

01:04:45.280 And he literally has the authority to do that.

01:04:46.780 And by the way, the, the OPSEC concerns from that, like, okay, the bad guys that could

01:04:52.840 hack it, they have radars and kind of know when we're taking off from aircraft carriers

01:04:57.100 and stuff, right?

01:04:57.580 It's like, they already know what we're doing and the bad guys that don't have the ability

01:05:00.840 to crack it are getting bombs dropped on their head and like, don't, they don't know.

01:05:04.540 They're not cracking signal.

01:05:05.380 Yeah.

01:05:05.800 So, uh.

01:05:07.460 But it's so unfortunate because it was a successful mission, you know, something to feel proud

01:05:12.040 of and all the press around it has been about this signal gate thing and so much of it on

01:05:17.060 Pete's shoulders, even though he's not the one who added, who created the chat or who

01:05:20.900 added, um, Jeffrey Goldberg.

01:05:23.680 So I, I feel for him and I'm sad to hear it's become such a distraction for him because it'd

01:05:27.980 be great if he could focus on this.

01:05:29.320 I know I can hear that you feel the same.

01:05:30.840 If he could just focus on the mission.

01:05:32.440 It just adds a lot of stress that is not needed when you already have a lot of stress on like

01:05:37.420 really important things.

01:05:38.320 Yeah.

01:05:38.500 And also, you know, we talked about, I do, I gave you the timeline, the audience, the

01:05:42.380 timeline of all the leaks that had preceded that signal, uh, thing.

01:05:45.520 So he's already dealing with somebody internally or, or maybe multiple somebodies.

01:05:50.200 Um, if you look at the agenda, you know, the suspected agenda behind these leaks, who's

01:05:53.940 trying to hurt him.

01:05:54.660 My read is that there are for each one of these leaks that you mentioned, and probably some

01:05:59.980 that aren't even in there, there is a specific person that is doing, it's not one person, it's

01:06:05.340 a person per thing.

01:06:06.320 And they all have some agenda, Elon, the agenda either was someone disagree with Elon coming

01:06:13.040 and getting whatever brief he was going to get.

01:06:15.240 And so they wanted to blow it up.

01:06:16.780 Or it was someone that disagreed that maybe the white house didn't know about it and wanted

01:06:20.880 to shut it down.

01:06:21.720 Right.

01:06:22.280 But it's one of those two things.

01:06:23.680 Is it somebody who accurately deduce Trump will not like this?

01:06:26.540 Potentially.

01:06:27.140 Because he didn't.

01:06:28.340 Potentially.

01:06:28.660 I would put my money more on the former, which is like someone just didn't want this to

01:06:32.560 happen.

01:06:33.400 Excuse me.

01:06:33.920 And then wanted to blow it all up.

01:06:35.560 Yeah, because just to be clear, it's not all Pete loyalists surrounding him.

01:06:38.680 And in these meetings, I mean, there will be some people who maybe weren't thrilled with

01:06:42.720 the choice.

01:06:43.600 There's a lot of people in the Republican Party who are more neo-conny or who just thought

01:06:47.400 he was inexperienced and didn't belong in this role.

01:06:49.780 Right.

01:06:50.040 I mean, you tell me, but within the Pentagon, it's not all loyalists.

01:06:52.280 I think that it goes back to building the team.

01:06:54.300 So I'm a firm believer in like, in order to get stuff done, you have to have a team.

01:07:00.300 The whole part of the team is trust.

01:07:03.600 And you have to trust the department.

01:07:06.280 Will there be people that are trying to undermine you?

01:07:08.120 Absolutely.

01:07:08.900 Are there going to be people that have their own agenda in the department?

01:07:11.100 Three million people.

01:07:12.020 Of course there are.

01:07:13.360 Half of them are probably Democrats.

01:07:14.500 Half of them are Republican if it mirrors America.

01:07:16.000 But the reality though, is you can't just like write a memo and then it's done.

01:07:21.100 You have to rely on the people to get the work done.

01:07:23.560 And when you find people that aren't, you, you know, eliminate them or put them off to

01:07:27.460 the side or however, whatever mechanism you can use to make that person less of an obstacle.

01:07:32.500 My observation from the first 90 days, and this is going to sound weird, is that we had

01:07:39.180 less of a problem from like the deep state bureaucrats in the department than we did from maybe

01:07:45.380 some people on our own team.

01:07:47.120 And that sounds weird, but if you think about the department, the civilian workforce, I don't

01:07:53.420 say they were running scared.

01:07:54.580 Maybe they would come on and say that they were scared, but you know, we, we were actively

01:07:58.800 shaping that workforce to be proactive to what we wanted done.

01:08:04.100 And where there were people that were like an obstacle, it was just steamrolled over them.

01:08:09.000 The military workforce is the military.

01:08:11.340 They clearly have their agendas, especially at the general officer level, like there's agendas

01:08:14.620 for sure.

01:08:15.380 And I watched some of the agendas play out, but at the end of the day, like they work

01:08:19.240 for the secretary and he says, this is what's going to happen.

01:08:21.120 And the military goes and does it.

01:08:24.400 Where I saw us run into problems was like, we did not have a functioning political team

01:08:29.880 process.

01:08:30.680 The people he brought in.

01:08:31.720 Yeah.

01:08:32.020 Really one person in my opinion, but it was, it was a non-functioning process.

01:08:35.660 Yeah.

01:08:35.780 Joe just said, Hey, I realized that I'm not the right person to actually cheat the staff.

01:08:39.100 I'm better for special projects.

01:08:40.960 Joe's a nuanced person because he's not, he's not like a complete idiot, right?

01:08:45.120 He, he was useful for certain things and he did a good job at those things.

01:08:49.280 Hey, renaming brag and renaming betting, you know, that, that was Joe.

01:08:54.240 He managed that whole thing end to end, came up with a clever solution and went and did

01:08:57.460 it.

01:08:58.460 Unfortunately, that probably took hours of his time when he should have been like chiefing

01:09:02.040 the staff for a much larger strategic efforts that we were trying to do.

01:09:06.460 No, but he did it.

01:09:08.000 Now, if he said, Hey, Joe's going to go do special projects like that and like knock

01:09:10.660 out of the park.

01:09:11.200 Great.

01:09:12.480 The secretary brought in Darren to chief the staff.

01:09:15.140 No, from my, from my perspective in the deputy's office, I was kind of told like, Hey, Darren's

01:09:19.920 the guy to work with now, and this is how we're going to do it.

01:09:23.000 Joe would get mad about that and like not accept that fact.

01:09:26.160 And so now that he's gone, do you feel like it's, it'll be a more functional place?

01:09:32.600 Sort of thought through this before in the last couple of days, I like to hope so, but

01:09:37.460 I think that there's a lot of water under the bridge at this point.

01:09:39.840 This can be really hard to recover from.

01:09:43.500 There are, now there is like actually a culture of kind of fear and toxicity and, you know,

01:09:51.260 whether it was the, the disgruntled former employees, like it is clear to me that there

01:09:56.100 are people in the department that are actively leaking, uh, and are seeing this as an opportunity.

01:10:00.940 And I'm not sure how you recover from that.

01:10:03.440 What, what I was told, you know, driving up here from the, from New York city is like

01:10:08.480 they're polygraphing people actively right now in the department.

01:10:11.380 Uh, there's just like a culture of fear.

01:10:13.180 It's people that are like political people, you know, that are on the team and no one's

01:10:17.780 going to want to come into that environment.

01:10:18.920 So if you've created that environment, you're basically, it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy

01:10:23.360 now where people are just going to leave because no one wants to deal with that.

01:10:27.540 And then your, your team gets smaller and smaller and smaller, and it's going to be

01:10:30.080 really hard.

01:10:30.660 So, right.

01:10:30.980 It's like, what, what was he supposed to do?

01:10:32.560 If people are leaking top secret information, like you have to do leak investigations and

01:10:36.680 you have to fire people.

01:10:37.780 Now, whether he fired the right three people.

01:10:39.520 So, I mean, there are ways to run leak investigations.

01:10:41.520 And I actually think that there's one that's in the press right now that, um, has been kind

01:10:45.920 of a, that super public thing, which is how Tulsi ran the IC leak investigations where

01:10:50.880 she just referred to people to come to DOJ.

01:10:53.140 I think it was a third coming and like, we don't know their names and we don't know exactly

01:10:58.440 what they leaked, but they clearly ran a great investigation.

01:11:02.020 They probably have enough evidence to actually go, go get these people.

01:11:05.540 That's not what we did here.

01:11:06.980 We had Air Force USA trying to do that.

01:11:08.920 And then we had this like separate thing that was super public and basically totally backfired.

01:11:13.800 And that's why we're having conversation right now.

01:11:15.460 Right.

01:11:15.660 Right.

01:11:15.980 Um, and the, the, the truth of it is I shouldn't even know your name.

01:11:19.720 Right.

01:11:20.320 And honestly, like I shouldn't even know I'm under investigation until my handcuffs go on.

01:11:23.680 Right.

01:11:23.980 Like that's, that's how we do it.

01:11:26.080 That's, I'm a Marine Corps intelligence.

01:11:27.240 I'm like, that's what we do.

01:11:28.860 It's almost like they wanted to humiliate you.

01:11:31.200 Yeah.

01:11:31.540 I mean, it's clear to me that there was an agenda, you know, I think I wasn't even like,

01:11:35.980 hadn't even been escorted out by the time someone was tweeting out like, Hey, he got escorted

01:11:39.520 out.

01:11:40.020 That, that's not a, that wasn't leaks, right?

01:11:42.220 That was an orchestrated campaign from public affairs to say these things off the record

01:11:46.260 or on background or whatever the terminology is.

01:11:49.000 I, I mean, that just makes me upset, right?

01:11:51.820 If you have something to say, go on the record and say it.

01:11:54.440 Speaking of the investigation and status of it, I, I got a call from, um, yeah, a reporter

01:12:03.740 at the guardian yesterday.

01:12:05.180 And like, I don't want to give away all the things.

01:12:08.220 Maybe I shouldn't even said that.

01:12:09.180 I don't know.

01:12:09.560 But your guy called me and I was like, Hey, I'll go on the record for you.

01:12:13.820 He, he asked me to comment.

01:12:14.860 I was like, I'll go on the record and state the thing.

01:12:16.420 And he had a, he basically had told me that a person from the Pentagon who we determined

01:12:21.680 was Tim parlator was calling him and peddling a theory of the leak investigation that involved,

01:12:29.120 um, the Panama papers being leaked by a conspiracy to get Joe in trouble.

01:12:35.820 And that, um, when that didn't stick, they called back and said, actually, Colin's obstructing

01:12:43.400 the investigation because I have a, I have a legal team and they are working a defamation

01:12:47.540 lawsuit against Joe, who by the way, wasn't part of the investigation as you told me.

01:12:51.560 And has, he has personally told me, so I don't know how I'd be obstructing the investigation

01:12:54.580 by looking at Joe, but, um, it appeared, I was told, Hey, Colin is, uh, what they came

01:13:01.260 back with told him was actually he was fired because he was routing contracts to his

01:13:05.580 former employer.

01:13:06.700 So all I'm telling you that there's a coordinate campaign of people in the department that

01:13:10.740 are anonymous, official people that are trying to get the press to publish things about myself,

01:13:17.760 Dan and Darren, and probably John, but I don't know that are completely factually inaccurate

01:13:22.140 and are, it is cowardice.

01:13:24.540 In my opinion, it is fucking cowardice.

01:13:26.360 Like if you have something to say, say it via the investigation or go on the record and

01:13:30.480 say it.

01:13:30.860 And Oh, by the way, I sent the knowledge that I got from that reporter calling me to

01:13:36.580 my air force OSI agent and said, it is unacceptable that they lead for the investigation.

01:13:41.440 Tim Parletor is calling the press and leaking about my investigation.

01:13:44.920 I didn't reply back.

01:13:46.900 Well, we'll reach out to them and give them the chance to respond to all this.

01:13:50.480 But you mentioned that you hired a lawyer, a defamation lawyer.

01:13:54.200 I'm working with a team.

01:13:55.360 I haven't hired him yet.

01:13:56.080 Okay.

01:13:57.260 So what's the thought there?

01:13:59.560 Yeah.

01:13:59.860 I mean, what they're telling me is that there's the federal tort claims act, I think is what

01:14:06.980 it's called.

01:14:07.700 But don't tell me what your lawyers are telling you.

01:14:09.440 That's that's between you and them, but just tell me what you, what generally what's in

01:14:12.920 your head.

01:14:13.400 What are you thinking?

01:14:13.960 I personally think that, that Joe, uh, I have people that are reporters that I talked

01:14:21.200 to who told me that Joe called them as the anonymous source from his personal number,

01:14:27.220 probably in an off duty status, right?

01:14:29.140 So like in the evening and said, Colin was fired for leaking like Ukraine and Panama.

01:14:35.480 And if that is the case and we can prove that, then we will sue for defamation.

01:14:39.260 If you have reporters who are going to go on the record with who their sources on something

01:14:42.940 like that, like giving it up, that's extraordinary.

01:14:46.360 Well, they feel like they were, they've been bamboozled this whole time and have been lied to.

01:14:49.960 So, wow.

01:14:50.780 Yeah.

01:14:52.620 Um, what do you, like, what's the bottom line here?

01:14:55.780 Like, is the Pentagon salvageable in its current form?

01:14:58.620 Is Pete going to make it?

01:14:59.940 And should he?

01:15:02.060 On the Pete question, I think that's really a question for the president.

01:15:04.800 And like, I wouldn't get ahead of that.

01:15:06.220 What are you rooting for?

01:15:08.140 I really want to go back to the department.

01:15:09.940 I don't think that Pete would have me back.

01:15:12.160 Um, and I honestly, I'm not a hundred percent sure I would go back with him there just based

01:15:17.000 on what I've seen.

01:15:17.600 Now, maybe he's been told, Hey, there's all this evidence and, uh, he just didn't do the

01:15:22.020 detailed look at it.

01:15:23.020 But I'd have to say that for Dan and Darren in particular to be fired, uh, the secretary

01:15:29.020 would have looked at that in detail because those are his, are, are his people.

01:15:33.460 And so my guess is that right now people are trying to scramble to create some evidence.

01:15:38.420 Um, if that's personally for me, for the department, it's a hard question.

01:15:47.260 I mean, we, we, we have not had a major challenge at this point.

01:15:52.080 So I don't know how the department would function if we had say like the fall of Kabul where we

01:15:57.480 had to, you know, the department had to scramble to get 70,000 people out of Afghanistan in

01:16:01.220 like a week or less than a week.

01:16:03.320 I'm not sure how that would.

01:16:04.500 Something where disorganization could really hurt us.

01:16:06.640 You're saying.

01:16:07.100 Correct.

01:16:08.240 That's what, that's my biggest fear.

01:16:10.080 It's not like single gate and all that stuff.

01:16:12.160 I, whatever I told you before, I don't think that's as serious as it, as it is.

01:16:16.280 Maybe it's a lack of judgment, but it's not the end of the world.

01:16:19.360 I think that my bigger fear is something, something happens somewhere on the planet and

01:16:24.680 we have to perform the duties of the department of defense and we are unable to do it.

01:16:29.500 I also personally think that with the three of us out and then some of the other senior

01:16:35.200 assistants that were in my office that quit last week, like the, the president's agenda

01:16:39.960 is at risk right now.

01:16:40.960 It is, I mean, it is risk of, of failing, but is at risk of being accomplished on the

01:16:46.260 schedule that we sat and that he wanted.

01:16:48.260 So things like golden dome, um, things like ship building, um, there's a team, these are

01:16:54.440 really hard problems and, um, they're massive and they involve a lot of parts of the department

01:16:59.400 coordinating together to deliver something.

01:17:01.840 That's my biggest fear.

01:17:02.920 And I think that, that, um, Mr. Feinberg is trying to probably corral the, the wagons right

01:17:08.040 now, like get everything back on track and moving in a direction.

01:17:11.500 Um, I would much rather be there helping him do it than out here talking to you, quite frankly.

01:17:16.420 You never know.

01:17:19.640 Could work out.

01:17:21.280 I mean, I, I think Pete is a great guy.

01:17:23.480 I think he's capable of many when he's wrong.

01:17:25.760 I realize he's in a different post now and it's a very important one.

01:17:28.440 And there may be many other considerations, but, um, I don't know.

01:17:32.320 I feel like if you get exonerated, maybe you could go back.

01:17:35.500 Maybe, maybe they could turn the page on both sides.

01:17:38.980 Yeah.

01:17:39.340 Steve Feinberg is a super private person and will probably murder me for going on the TV.

01:17:43.800 But honestly, you know, this isn't something I do.

01:17:46.400 I'm not, this is my first time on TV.

01:17:48.020 I, um, they don't put me in front of the camera.

01:17:50.300 I'm not that person.

01:17:50.980 I'm the person in the background that tries to get work done.

01:17:53.540 Um, I do feel like this was the one recourse I had to try and actually explain what the

01:17:58.760 hell is going on here.

01:17:59.560 And, and, uh, I do think that we, we are owed an apology.

01:18:04.420 I certainly believe that I am owed an apology and I would like to be exonerated publicly.

01:18:08.180 But yeah, it must be incredibly frustrating to see all these negative stories about you

01:18:12.460 and to feel powerless, to stop them.

01:18:16.940 Yeah.

01:18:17.540 You know, I don't think I've like had a chance to process it quite yet.

01:18:22.180 I was working six to seven days a week, depending on the day.

01:18:27.080 Um, I would get up in the dark.

01:18:29.600 I would leave at six, six 30.

01:18:31.460 I would come back at between eight 30 and 10, 11, depending on the day, Saturday, Sundays.

01:18:37.900 I just get like the weekend before we got fired.

01:18:40.200 There was a big crisis.

01:18:41.120 And I see, it was like, Hey, can you come in?

01:18:42.540 We went in on Saturday.

01:18:43.400 We're there all day.

01:18:44.420 Sunday.

01:18:44.840 I had a winery book with my wife in Virginia.

01:18:47.980 It's at 2 PM.

01:18:48.880 I went in in the morning.

01:18:49.860 I got back around 1230.

01:18:51.580 I was like, all right, we're going to go out there.

01:18:52.880 It's an hour drive.

01:18:53.540 And I had to be back by four 30 to meet with my boss.

01:18:56.500 And then I got on a Sunday.

01:18:58.500 And then I got a note from the NSC is like, damn it.

01:19:00.820 I got to go back to work.

01:19:01.620 So I was like, sorry, babe, I got to go back.

01:19:03.180 So that was my life.

01:19:04.460 It was just like running full, full, um, pace.

01:19:07.880 This past week has kind of been like a vacation.

01:19:10.200 I actually feel worse for the people that I left behind in the department, like my boss

01:19:14.300 and my team who need you, who are, you know, there's, there's 16 balls in the air.

01:19:19.280 And I probably was the only person that knew about like four of them.

01:19:22.640 And those balls have fallen.

01:19:23.920 And that's my fault for not, you know, having the team read in.

01:19:27.680 And I think that they're probably, you know, rowing even harder now.

01:19:31.580 And I left a huge gap.

01:19:32.580 I feel terrible about that.

01:19:34.320 Um, I feel like I'm, I'm, I don't, I didn't do anything wrong.

01:19:39.860 So like my stress level is not really high.

01:19:41.640 I've not been, you know, there's not like a criminal, all these criminal kind of allegations

01:19:45.240 coming out.

01:19:45.680 Like Dan has, Dan has, you know, this is his life.

01:19:49.360 He is a like MAGA ecosystem person.

01:19:52.140 And if he's not credible and trusted in that ecosystem, it's not like he can go jump the

01:19:56.040 Democrats or jump to the other part of the Republican party.

01:19:58.540 Like this is him.

01:19:59.420 He has friends, Darren.

01:20:01.180 I think we'll retire.

01:20:03.260 These guys are great Americans, by the way.

01:20:04.920 Like Dan is a enlisted Marine who went to combat.

01:20:08.900 He's after he got back, he's been literally serving his entire life to like make this agenda

01:20:13.460 a thing.

01:20:14.660 Darren spent years in the air force.

01:20:16.960 He, after the air force, he's literally been trying to help veterans like me who are in

01:20:21.460 a way worse shape than me for the last decade and a half.

01:20:24.280 These people dropped everything to come in the department.

01:20:26.640 Like I'm honored to actually work with them.

01:20:28.740 And when I hear things like Joe's a great American and I look at Joe and it's like, yeah, he was

01:20:33.260 in the air force a little bit and that's awesome.

01:20:35.080 He served.

01:20:35.820 He worked for Duncan Hunter, probably not the best lessons learned from that experience.

01:20:40.280 And then he went to lobby for literally all the companies that fail to make anything that

01:20:44.920 works at a cost that we can afford.

01:20:47.560 I don't like, I'm not, I don't see it.

01:20:49.660 I don't see the, the, the juxtaposition there is weird to me.

01:20:52.940 Um, so I feel for those two.

01:20:55.100 I, uh, you know, I feel for my twin brother who sent me a note last week and was like,

01:20:59.320 they're using my photo on Twitter.

01:21:00.880 No, we're not identical.

01:21:03.560 No, we're fraternal, but I don't have, I'm not the most public person, so they couldn't

01:21:08.400 find a photo of me.

01:21:09.340 And I guess they just grabbed one of Kieran.

01:21:10.780 So he was really upset.

01:21:12.460 You know, I've been getting threats.

01:21:14.780 I wouldn't call them death threats, but things like.

01:21:16.960 You know, we're coming for you or like, they're going to get you stuff like that on LinkedIn.

01:21:20.500 And that's the only media platform I have.

01:21:23.520 Um, my wife's like, Hey, we got to change the doors, the locks to the doors.

01:21:26.880 You know, we've got a kid and another kid on the way.

01:21:28.540 It's like, it is stressful.

01:21:29.860 And I just think that it could have been done in a completely different manner.

01:21:33.260 And I, I didn't leak anything.

01:21:35.520 So I'm totally comfortable saying I'm innocent.

01:21:38.580 No, nothing's going to come out proving that you leaked anything or aided and abetted a

01:21:43.860 leaking.

01:21:44.340 No, not at all.

01:21:47.220 God bless Colin.

01:21:48.320 Yeah.

01:21:48.620 Thank you for Megan for having me on.

01:21:49.880 Yeah.

01:21:50.080 Thank you for trusting me with the story.

01:21:51.560 Yeah, definitely.

01:21:52.020 After our interview with Colin, we reached out both to Joe Casper, whose name you heard

01:21:58.580 quite a few times there and to Tim Parlatore and, uh, Mr. Parlatore declined to give us

01:22:03.240 a statement, but Joe Casper did.

01:22:05.520 And it reads as follows.

01:22:06.960 The idea there was dysfunction is an argument of convenience, which in hindsight is being

01:22:12.840 weaponized by a small group who are rallying against the president and the secretary in

01:22:17.360 their own interests.

01:22:18.860 In 90 days, we reestablished Gitmo, transferred migrants on gray tails, which we think is a

01:22:24.860 reference to military aircraft, added 10,000 troops on the border, protected freedom of navigation

01:22:30.840 against houthi threats, redesigned installations, restored warrior ethos, and put recruitment

01:22:37.520 and retention back on track.

01:22:40.020 That's not dysfunction.

01:22:41.620 That's success.

01:22:43.060 Colin wasn't part of any of it, but I wish him all the best.

01:22:46.780 He's a smart guy with unlimited potential.

01:22:50.080 Um, we've extended an offer to both men to come on and we will let you know if they do.

01:22:55.480 Awaiting your thoughts as well.

01:22:57.240 You know how to reach me.

01:22:57.940 It's Megan at MeganKelley.com.

01:23:01.020 Would love to know what you think of this whole story.

01:23:04.100 Until next time.

01:23:05.120 See you soon.

01:23:07.220 Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show.

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The Megyn Kelly Show - April 26, 2025

Exclusive： Alleged Pentagon ＂Leaker＂ Colin Carroll Speaks Out About Life Inside DOD, Hegseth's Leadership, and to Dispute Allegations ｜ Ep. 1058

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