Pete Hegseth targets news outlets, leakers as defense secretary

May 26, 2025 | Defense Department attempts to bar CNN reporter from foreign trip

March 21, 2025 | Defense Department announces investigation into media leaks

May 26, 2025 | Defense Department attempts to bar CNN reporter from foreign trip

The Pentagon attempted to bar CNN national security reporter Haley Britzky from traveling as the designated television pool journalist during Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s trip to Singapore, Status reported on May 26, 2025.

“Pentagon officials—apparently irked by some of her tweets, despite their innocuous nature—relayed to CNN brass that she was not welcome,” Oliver Darcy wrote.

On May 24, Britzky highlighted her Signal username in a post on the social platform X amid the Department of Defense’s efforts to crack down on leaks, including by limiting press access to areas of the Pentagon.

Arthur Schwartz, one of Hegseth’s closest advisers, reposted Britzky, adding, “Any reporters that are encouraging DoD employees to bypass DoD Public Affairs and violate the terms of their employment with the government should be permanently banned from the Pentagon. Start with this one.”

Status reported that the move to exclude Britzky from Hegseth’s Singapore trip triggered an immediate backlash: Multiple other outlets indicated that if she was excluded they would boycott the trip.

“They don’t get to decide who covers them,” one correspondent told Status.

The Pentagon relented, and Britzky traveled with Hegseth as originally planned.

March 21, 2025 | Defense Department announces investigation into media leaks

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office sent a memo on March 21, 2025, initiating an investigation into “recent unauthorized disclosures of national security information.”

“This investigation will commence immediately and culminate in a report to the Secretary of Defense,” wrote Joe Kasper, Hegseth’s chief of staff. “I expect to be informed immediately if this effort results in information identifying a party responsible for an unauthorized disclosure, and that such information will be referred to the appropriate criminal law enforcement entity for criminal prosecution.”

The memo also noted that department employees will be subject to polygraph exams “in accordance with applicable law and policy.”

The memo came hours after Elon Musk, head of the new Department of Government Efficiency, posted on social media calling The New York Times’ reporting on the planned content of his briefing at the Pentagon “pure propaganda.”

“I look forward to the prosecutions of those at the Pentagon who are leaking maliciously false information to NYT,” Musk wrote. “They will be found.”

Musk’s meeting with members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ultimately did not take place, Reuters reported.

A Times spokesperson told Reuters that leak investigations are “meant to chill communications between journalists and their sources and undermine the ability of a free press to bring out vital information that may otherwise be hidden.”