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The White House has decided to discontinue Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of polygraph tests to uncover leakers, as reported.
Patrick Weaver, a current advisor to Hegseth, raised concerns to top administration officials about the possibility of undergoing a polygraph test, which led to a request to Hegseth to cease the lie detector tests.
The investigation into identifying leakers within the Department of Defense began in late March with a memo from Joe Kasper, who was then Hegseth’s chief of staff.
“Recent unauthorized disclosures of national security information involving sensitive communications with principals within the Office of the Secretary of Defense demand immediate and thorough investigation,” Kasper wrote in the March 21 memo.
The White House and the Pentagon did not respond immediately to requests for comment.
The latest controversy at the Pentagon comes after the ‘Signalgate’ scandal earlier this year. Discussions about military action between Hegseth and a group of top Trump officials were leaked despite being conducted on an encrypted app.
Then-national security advisor Michael Waltz took “full responsibility” for the error of including the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg on the Signal chat alongside Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and Hegseth.
In the aftermath of the accidental leak to a journalist about impending U.S. military strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen, Trump has continued to show support for Hegseth publicly.
