Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Sunday that the Pentagon and the Department of Justice have created a joint task force to identify and prosecute individuals who leak sensitive national defense information — and immediately delegated sweeping new authority to the Pentagon’s Office of General Counsel to drive investigations across the entire department.
“To leak sensitive national defense information and secrets betrays the men and women who wear our nation’s uniform,” Hegseth said in a video posted on X. “The Department of War and the Department of Justice have created a joint task force to identify and prosecute leakers.”
Hegseth specifically thanked Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche — whose Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing is scheduled for July 15 — for his partnership in the project, calling the two departments closer than they have “ever been before.”
What the New Authority Covers
Hegseth announced that effective immediately, the Pentagon’s Office of General Counsel has been granted delegated tasking authority to request and receive all information, records and support from across the department on media leak investigations. All Pentagon components and personnel are required to prioritize those requests and respond fully within 48 hours of any tasking issued by the OGC under the new authority.
“Leaked information risks lives,” Hegseth said. “These new tools and processes will greatly assist us in protecting our joint force. The security of our nation cannot be a bargaining chip for those who seek momentary headlines. Access to confidential and secret information is a sacred trust, and those who betray that trust will be met with the full force of the law.”
Hegseth invoked George Washington in framing the announcement. “It’s a principle as old as war, and in the United States goes back to the founding of our republic. George Washington himself battled leaks, insider threats, and espionage,” he said. “When a leak of department information occurs today, it’s critical that we provide the Department of Justice and other partners in federal law enforcement, including the FBI, with actionable information as quickly as possible.”
The NYT Subpoenas That Set the Stage
Hegseth’s announcement came three days after the DOJ issued subpoenas to four New York Times reporters — Julian E. Barnes, Eric Lipton, Tyler Pager and Eric Schmitt — seeking to compel them to testify before a federal grand jury in Manhattan over the newspaper’s reporting on security concerns involving the Qatari-donated jet that now serves as Air Force One. The Times published a statement from its attorney David McCraw calling the subpoenas “a brazen act” aimed at “intimidating journalists from doing their jobs” and saying the appearance of federal agents on journalists’ doorsteps “should shock the conscience of any American who believes in the Constitution and the press freedom it protects,” according to The New York Times Company’s official statement.
The DOJ maintained that reporters are not the targets of the investigation — only the government employees who disclosed classified material to them. Acting Attorney General Blanche warned in May that any witness with information about leakers, “whether a reporter or otherwise, should not be surprised” to receive a subpoena, per his official DOJ remarks on national security leaks.
The DOJ also previously issued subpoenas to Wall Street Journal and Washington Post reporters over Iran war reporting before withdrawing them under legal challenge. Federal agents raided the home of a Washington Post reporter in January in connection with a government contractor’s handling of classified information. Trump threatened in April to jail journalists who revealed that a missing U.S. airman from a downed F-15E was inside Iran, saying the government would tell the media company involved to give up its source or go to jail, per his Truth Social posts at the time.
Hegseth’s Broader Crackdown on Press Access
The task force formalizes months of escalating pressure on Pentagon press coverage. Most major news organizations surrendered their Pentagon credentials in October 2025 rather than sign a policy requiring reporters to pledge they would not solicit any unauthorized material, even if unclassified. A federal judge granted a preliminary injunction in June ruling that the Pentagon’s requirement that journalists be accompanied by an official chaperone at all times violated the First Amendment, in a case brought by the New York Times, according to court records cited in the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press case tracker.
The Pentagon also barred journalists from entering its press office after designating the space a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility. The War Department’s official news page has increasingly been the primary channel through which the department communicates with the public on operational matters, replacing the traditional press briefing model that defined Pentagon communications for decades.
Hegseth’s Own Leaks Under Scrutiny
The announcement carried an uncomfortable backdrop. The Pentagon’s own Inspector General concluded in a December 2025 report — DODIG-2026-021 — that Hegseth violated Pentagon policy on personal device use when he shared imminent airstrike details in a Signal group chat in March 2025. A journalist was accidentally included in the chat. Hegseth also shared similar details in a second Signal chat with his wife, brother and personal lawyer.
Hegseth declined to be interviewed by the inspector general, submitted his arguments in writing and called the report a “total exoneration.” No criminal referral was made and he faced no formal consequences. John Ullyot, his former chief Pentagon spokesperson, said Sunday that “it’s very rich for Hegseth to cite the need to protect ‘sensitive national defense information’ after he himself shared ‘sensitive national defense information’ last year with his wife over Signal and faced zero consequences,” drawing a comparison to CIA Director David Petraeus, who resigned and was sentenced to two years’ probation and fined $100,000 for sharing classified notebooks with his biographer in 2012, per the official DOJ press release on the Petraeus sentencing.
The Caldwell Investigation
The administration’s own internal leak probe has not been without controversy. Three of Hegseth’s senior aides — former senior adviser Dan Caldwell, former deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick and Colin Carroll, former chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg — were placed on administrative leave, escorted from the Pentagon and dismissed during a leak investigation earlier this year. An administration official later confirmed that investigators found no evidence Caldwell had leaked any information. Caldwell was subsequently hired by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
With American forces conducting active strikes in Iran and the Strait of Hormuz conflict ongoing — confirmed in real time by CENTCOM’s official public releases — the task force’s practical effect will directly shape how much war reporting reaches the American public. Casualty updates, operational setbacks and intelligence warnings have largely reached families with relatives in the conflict zone through the channels now under criminal investigation. Whether the task force’s mandate extends to officials within the administration who share sensitive information through unofficial channels — as the IG found Hegseth did — was not addressed in Sunday’s announcement.