After Tucker Carlson Guest Attacked a Defense Advisory Board, the Pentagon Nuked Its Website

The Pentagon quietly scrubbed an advisory board s website after a fired aide to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth complained that it was stocked with holdovers hostile to President Donald Trump who might be spreading damaging leaks The Defense Plan Board s online roster was erased after axed staffer Dan Caldwell reported Tucker Carlson in an interview that its members were incredibly hostile to Trump Caldwell was fired Friday amid a Defense Department leak inquiry that has led to the ouster of several longtime Hegseth confidants In his interview with Carlson Caldwell cast himself as the victim of a behind-the-scenes battle between warmongers pushing for conflict with Iran and skeptics of foreign military intervention such as himself Although the Defense Approach Board is an independent advisory group with no powers of its own he blamed members including Susan Rice a former Joe Biden aide as feasible sources of leaks for which he had been blamed Related Pete Hegseth Is Gutting Pentagon Programs to Reduce Civilian Casualties She and a bunch of other people who are incredibly hostile to the president and his worldview remain on the Defense Strategy Board Caldwell declared I would just say if you want to look where leaks are maybe coming from that would be a place to start Caldwell did not offer any evidence His complaints were soon amplified online however by former Trump national shield adviser Michael Flynn By Thursday of this week the names of Rice and other guidelines board members had vanished from the Pentagon website The change happened after Caldwell s interview was posted to X on Monday according to Internet Archive captures of the website Earlier this week a Pentagon spokesperson narrated Responsible Statecraft that the list was up to date It is unclear whether the board s members have been removed The Defense Department did not this instant respond to a request comment If Hegseth has sacked board members however it would continue a series of dramatic changes to the board s membership over the past five years After remaining largely intact for the majority of Trump s first term the Trump administration pushed out numerous of the board s members in November The likes of Henry Kissinger and Madeline Albright were replaced with Trump loyalists such as Newt Gingrich and Scott O Grady a former fighter pilot who shared calls for Trump to declare martial law in response to his ballot defeat Biden s secretary of defense Lloyd Austin removed all the members of the framework board and other boards just weeks into his tenure He eventually replaced Trump s lame-duck appointees with establishment D C figures associated with former Democratic and Republican presidents drawing heavily on Washington s deep bench of liberal and neoconservative hawks At the time the site went down the board included figures like Rice and former ambassador Eric Edelman who served as a Defense Department under secretary during George W Bush s presidency They and other board members could not forthwith be reached for comment Board minutes posted online indicate that it has not met since last June It s unclear why Hegseth who has rapidly moved to remove representatives affiliated with Biden from the Defense Department leadership would have allowed Rice to receive sensitive information Caldwell argued that board membership would have given members such as Rice a pathway because it gave her a credential and affiliation with the Pentagon The post After Tucker Carlson Guest Attacked a Defense Advisory Board the Pentagon Nuked Its Website appeared first on The Intercept