The White House has ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to stop using polygraph tests on Pentagon staff suspected of leaking classified information.
The directive came after Patrick Weaver, a top Hegseth adviser, pushed back against the use of lie detectors in the internal probe.
Weaver warned senior officials he might be forced to take a polygraph himself. That triggered a call to Hegseth—ordering him to shut the program down.
The move marks a rare public intervention from the West Wing into Pentagon operations.
Weaver previously served in the Trump administration during the president’s first term, holding posts on the National Security Council and at DHS.
The investigation was launched in March after sensitive military communications were leaked from inside the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
Hegseth’s then–chief of staff, Joe Kasper, issued a memo demanding immediate action.
“Recent unauthorized disclosures of national security information involving sensitive communications… demand immediate and thorough investigation,” Kasper wrote in a March 21 directive.
He authorized the use of polygraphs to identify those responsible, per Fox News.
The leaks reportedly involved encrypted Signal app conversations between Hegseth and other top Trump administration officials.
Those chats included discussions about U.S. military strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.
Despite being held over Signal, the chat logs were leaked to Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg—who was accidentally included in the message chain.
The leak sparked national outrage and was quickly dubbed “Signalgate.”
Trump’s national security advisor Mike Waltz took full responsibility for the breach.
The Signal chat had included Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Hegseth, and Waltz.
Waltz admitted that Goldberg’s presence in the chat was a “mistake” and an “embarrassment.”
Still, President Donald Trump stood by Hegseth.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told the media in March that the president “fully supports Secretary Hegseth” and considers the Signal chat case “closed.”
The White House and Pentagon declined to comment further on the polygraph decision.
The order to halt the lie detector tests comes amid mounting internal tensions between top defense officials and West Wing aides.
While the use of polygraphs was legally cleared under DOD policy, it appears the political cost was deemed too high.
Weaver reportedly objected to being subjected to the same security scrutiny as junior-level staff.
The Hegseth probe had already rattled nerves inside the Pentagon. Some career staff called the crackdown excessive, while others blamed legacy holdovers from the Biden era for continuing to leak.
Trump has made internal loyalty a cornerstone of his second term—and has frequently cited leakers as a threat to national security.
Even with the polygraph plan shut down, sources say Hegseth is continuing the leak investigation through other channels.
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Author: Anthony Gonzalez
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