By Molly Claire Goddard
9:20am PDT, Jul 21, 2025
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Pete Hegseth continues to lose employees at the Pentagon.
One of the Defense Secretary's senior staffers and advisers
Justin Fulcher will be exiting his government job after Hegseth dismissed many of his top aides following a probe into numerous leaks that have happened.
Keep reading to learn the alleged circumstances around Fulcher's departure…MORE:
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According to multiple insiders who spoke to
CBS News, Justin Fulcher — who was promoted to his role at the Pentagon from
Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency in April — was allegedly "ousted" from Pete Hegseth's team. However, his public statement claims otherwise.
"As planned, I've completed six months of service in government to my country," Fulcher wrote in an update shared to X. "None of this could have happened without Secretary Hegseth's decisive leadership or President
[Donald] Trump's continued confidence in our team. I will continue to champion American warfighters in all future endeavors."
Chief Pentagon spokesperson
Sean Parnell also said in a
statement, "The Department of Defense is grateful to Justin Fulcher for his work on behalf of President Trump and Secretary Hegseth. We wish him well in his future endeavors."
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After a string of leaked text messages about highly classified issues were made public, Deputy Chief of Staff
Darin Selnick, Senior Adviser
Dan Caldwell and Chief of Staff to Deputy Defense Secretary
Stephen Feinberg,
Colin Carroll, were fired in April.
"There is a complete meltdown in the building, and this is really reflecting on the secretary's leadership," an insider claimed to
Politico about Pete Hegseth and his staff.
A source also alleged some are worried the 45-year-old "has surrounded himself with some people who don't have his interests at heart."
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Per
NBC News, Pete Hegseth also removed the Naval Academy's first female superintendent,
Yvette Davids, from her job. However, the admiral wasn't demoted or forced to retire from military service. Instead, she was nominated to serve in a different role.
In April 2025, Hegseth raved about terminating the Pentagon's Women, Peace and Security program. "This morning, I proudly ENDED the 'Women, Peace & Security' (WPS) program inside the [Pentagon]. WPS is yet another woke divisive/social justice/
[Joe] Biden initiative that overburdens our commanders and troops — distracting from our core task: WAR-FIGHTING," he wrote on social media. "WPS is a UNITED NATIONS program pushed by feminists and left-wing activists. Politicians fawn over it. Troops HATE it. DoD will hereby executive [sic] the minimum of WPS required by statute and fight to end the program for our next budget. GOOD RIDDANCE WPS!"
