Joe Kasper is out as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s chief of staff, the fourth top official to be fired or reassigned in the last week amid political turmoil at the Pentagon.Kasper will continue to work on special projects at the Pentagon, according to a Defense official who was not authorized to speak publicly.
The unrest at the pinnacle of the military’s leadership is highly unusual. Hegseth has been the focus of a Pentagon Inspector General’s review of his handling of sensitive military information via the commercial app Signal.Kasper, who worked in the first Trump administration, had previously been chief of staff to Rep. Duncan Hunter, Jr. Hunter had been convicted of misusing campaign funds and was later pardoned by Trump.