WASHINGTON — Former Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot was requested to resign this week, a senior protection official advised The Related Press on Thursday, within the newest shakeup for the Protection Division following firings and different modifications underneath President Donald Trump.
Ullyot was certainly one of Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth’s preliminary hires for the communications workplace and oversaw a few of its most extremely seen however controversial strikes, together with a broad edict to the army providers to strip away online images and different content material thought-about a promotion of range, fairness or inclusion.
That directive, given underneath a wide-ranging Trump administration effort to purge so-called DEI content from federal companies, led to public outcry when pictures of national heroes like Jackie Robinson have been briefly eliminated.
Ullyot’s departure is the fourth this week amongst Hegseth’s former inside circle. Three different senior officers have been escorted from the constructing this week after being implicated in an ongoing investigation into info leaks: Colin Carroll, chief of employees to Deputy Protection Secretary Stephen Feinberg; Darin Selnick, Hegseth’s deputy chief of employees; and Dan Caldwell, an aide to Hegseth.
It was not instantly clear what leaks led to the departures. Caldwell and Selnick had labored with the protection secretary throughout his time main the nonprofit Involved Veterans for America.
Underneath Hegseth, the communications workplace has made vital modifications to the way it works with Pentagon reporters, together with eradicating many information retailers from their longtime workspaces and never but holding weekly briefings.
Ullyot was transferred out of the communications workplace in late March following the blowback from the Pentagon’s purge of Robinson and a bungled public affairs response. Additionally, in his emailed responses to journalists, Ullyot referred to himself because the Pentagon press secretary. However Hegseth had employed Sean Parnell to talk for him from the Pentagon’s podium.
In an emailed response to the AP on Thursday, Ullyot stated he advised Hegseth when he was employed he “was not fascinated about being quantity two to anybody in public affairs” and that the understanding was all the time that he would keep just for about two months to assist get the communications workplace up and operating. When no different appropriate place was discovered for him, Ullyot stated he determined to resign.
However a senior protection official acquainted with the choice stated that wasn’t the case and that Hegseth’s workplace had requested that Ullyot resign.
Ullyot, who shared his resignation letter with AP, disputed the official’s account, calling it “flat out false and laughable.”
Ullyot’s resignation Wednesday was not tied to the inquiry into the unauthorized disclosures. Two different U.S. officers stated Carroll, Selnick and Caldwell have been positioned on depart in that investigation.
All three officers spoke on the situation of anonymity to debate particulars that haven’t been made public.
The departures comply with a purge of senior army officers, together with Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. CQ Brown; Chief of Naval Operations Lisa Franchetti; National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command director Gen. Tim Haugh; and Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, the U.S. army consultant to the NATO Navy Committee.
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