Days before Pete Hegseth fired three top aides last month over a Pentagon leak investigation into the disclosure of classified materials, according to four people familiar with the episode, a recently hired senior adviser said he could help with the inquiry.
The adviser, Justin Fulcher, suggested to Hegseth’s then chief of staff, Joe Kasper, and Hegseth’s personal lawyer, Tim Parlatore, that he knew of warrantless surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA) that had identified the leakers.
Fulcher offered to share the supposed evidence as long as he could help run the investigation, three of the people said. But when he eventually sat down with officials, it became clear he had no evidence of a wiretap, and the Pentagon had been duped.
A storied US agency, one that began under President Kennedy in 1961 with the aim of...
