The Pentagon’s dirty laundry is now airing in Washington gossip rags. “The last month has been a full-blown meltdown at the Pentagon — and it’s becoming a real problem for the administration,” former top Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot complained in Politico on Sunday. “From leaks of sensitive operational plans to mass firings, the dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president — who deserves better from his senior leadership.”

Ullyot warned of more revelations to come in the next week. Sure enough, that same day The New York Times broke the news that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had shared details of the March 15 strikes against the Houthi terrorists in Yemen in a second Signal chat group, according to anonymous sources. This group, titled “Defense | Team Huddle,” was created by Hegseth himself, and it included his wife, brother, and personal lawyer.

This recalls the event that kick-started the Pentagon’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad month. The Atlantic reported in late March that Hegseth had shared details of the Houthi strikes in a Signal chat between high-ranking government officials, which inadvertently included The Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg. A spokesman for the National Security Council confirmed the chat was real, although various administration officials downplayed the significance of the information shared therein until Goldberg published a follow-up piece that provided more detail.

Even before the news broke about a second Signal chat, the scandal had already drawn an investigation by the Pentagon Inspector General and a second investigation by congressional Democrats.

The Pentagon, for its part, launched a probe not into the handling of classified information but into the ongoing series of leaks to the media. Within days, three senior officials were placed on administrative leave and then fired: Dan Caldwell, senior advisor to Hegseth; Darin Selnick, deputy chief-of-staff to Hegseth; and Colin Carroll, chief-of-staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg. Hegseth’s chief-of-staff Joe Kasper also resigned to take another role in the Defense Department, while top spokesman Ullyot either resigned or was asked to leave.

On Saturday, Caldwell, Carroll, and Selnick fired a parting shot at “unnamed Pentagon officials” who “have slandered our character with baseless attacks on our way out the door,” they wrote in a joint statement that denied any responsibility for the leaks. “At this time, we still have not been told what exactly we were investigated for, if there is still an active investigation, or if there was even a real investigation of ‘leaks’ to begin with.” The New York Times did note that Caldwell and Selnick were privy to Hegseth’s second Signal chat, although they did not say whether these men were the source of the leaks.

These senior officials caught the headlines, but they were not the only ones to go. National Review’s Michael Brendan Dougherty counts 15 people who have now been fired. “Among the latest group to be let go, there was no notice of the investigation into leaks having been concluded and no cause given,” he wrote. “I know good men with great reputations on both sides of this turf war who have been cashiered. Some of what’s going on now is personal. Some of it is the ongoing fight between hawks and restrainers.”

Meanwhile, the Pentagon is exhorting Americans — and probably our foreign adversaries, too — to pay no attention to the bloodbath behind the curtain. The Pentagon’s new chief spokesman, Sean Parnell, chalked the controversy up to rumors spread by “disgruntled former employees,” people “who were fired this week and appear to have a motive to sabotage.”

There are other possible explanations (e.g. falsely accused men angrily defending their reputations), but this stereotype is based upon an element of truth. Depending on their level of gruntle, fired employees may become desperate, seek retribution, and feel like they have nothing left to lose. Due to the fallen nature of man, it would be unwise to dismiss this possibility too quickly, before assembling all the facts.

Yet the Pentagon’s tidy tale fails to account for the elephant in the room — namely, its own rapid dismissal of numerous top aides. A Cabinet department hemorrhaging staff is about as reliable as a car dropping parts as it sputters down the highway. Even the basic questions are glossed over as unimportant: Why were they fired? Who is doing the firing? When will the purge be complete?

Amid the unresolved questions, the White House “has begun the process of looking for a new leader at the Pentagon to replace Pete Hegseth,” according to an NPR scoop published Monday. Their source for that information was — you guessed it — an anonymous official. That means another media leak, this time from the White House.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt quickly contradicted the report, tweeting, “This @NPR story is total FAKE NEWS based on one anonymous source who clearly has no idea what they are talking about. As the President said this morning, he stands strongly behind @SecDef.”

“This is what the media does,” Hegseth complained. “They take anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees, and then they try to slash and burn people, ruin their reputation. It’s not going to work with me.”

Yet the reports have already convinced one Republican congressman to suggest that Trump remove Hegseth. “I’m not in the White House, and I’m not going to tell the White House how to manage this … but I find it unacceptable, and I wouldn’t tolerate it if I was in charge,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), who represents a competitive district in the Cornhusker State. “Russia and China put up thousands of people to monitor all these phone calls at the very top, and the No. 1 target besides the president … would be the secretary of Defense.”

President Trump has two main options before him. One is to replace Hegseth, which would give the media a scalp but make the scandals go away. The other is to stand loyally by the inexperienced Hegseth, hoping the scandals don’t grow too out-of-hand, until he learns on the job how to right the ship.

It’s not clear what decision Trump will make, or even what the right decision is. What is clear, however, is that a Pentagon paralyzed by infighting puts the entire nation at risk. Jesus stated as a truism, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and a divided household falls” (Luke 11:17).