A third top Pentagon official is being placed on administrative leave amid an ongoing investigation into information leaks at the Defense Department. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Colin Carroll, chief of staff to deputy secretary of Defense Steve A. Feinberg, was placed on administrative leave<\/strong> on Wednesday, a U.S. defense official told The Hill. The department did not have any more information to share. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Carroll\u2019s suspension came just a day after two of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth\u2019s\u2002<\/u><\/a>advisers were suspended<\/u><\/a> and escorted <\/strong>out of the Pentagon<\/u><\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n On Tuesday, the Defense Department suspended and escorted<\/u><\/a> out Dan Caldwell<\/strong>, Hegseth\u2019s senior adviser, and Darin Selnick<\/strong>, the department\u2019s deputy chief of staff. Caldwell and Selnick formerly worked at Concerned Veterans for America, a nonprofit group previously headed by Hegseth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The department officials said in March that the building had begun an investigation into \u201crecent unauthorized disclosures<\/strong> of national security information.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis investigation will commence immediately<\/strong> and culminate in a report to the Secretary of Defense,\u201d Hegseth\u2019s chief of staff Joe Kasper wrote in a March 21 memo. \u201cThe report will include a complete record of unauthorized disclosures within the Department of Defense and recommendations to improve such efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leaks under probe<\/strong> by the DOD include the movement of a second aircraft carrier to the Red Sea, military operations plans for the Panama Canal, tech billionaire Elon Musk\u2019s\u2002<\/u><\/a>visit to the department<\/u><\/a> and halting intelligence sharing<\/u><\/a> with Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Carroll, a Marine Corps intelligence officer<\/strong>, deployed to Afghanistan four times before working at Anduril Industries, a defense contractor specializing in autonomous systems, according to his LinkedIn. He also worked at Applied Intuition, a software company headquartered in California. <\/p>\n\n\n\n