Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired Army Lt. Gen. Brett Sylvia, who directed strategy, plans and policy for the Joint Staff, the military's senior planning staff, after an investigation into leaks of classified information about the Iran war and the Russia-Ukraine war, an anonymous Pentagon official told CBS News. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell, without naming Sylvia, said that "following an extensive Air Force OSI investigation, the Department took necessary personnel action to protect sensitive information" and that the matter had been referred to the Justice Department "for potential further legal action." The accounts of the evidence conflict. Axios reported that an internal report of the investigation says Sylvia admitted disclosing classified information to two reporters over about a year. Two other unnamed Pentagon sources told CBS News that the firing was related to polygraph tests but said "those accusations are not true," and an unnamed colleague told The Washington Post that Sylvia has repeatedly denied leaking classified information. Sylvia, a Purple Heart recipient wounded in combat, has not commented publicly, and no charges have been filed.
What the Pentagon and its officials say
The anonymous Pentagon official told CBS News that Sylvia failed three polygraph examinations about sharing classified information with the press; a U.S. official told Axios he failed four and then acknowledged the misconduct on video. A senior Pentagon official told ABC News that Hegseth fired him for "severe misconduct," and an official told Fox News that Sylvia had begun meeting reporters outside the Pentagon after Hegseth required that journalists be escorted inside the building. Axios, which said it was shown the internal report, quoted it as accusing him of "unauthorized disclosures to the media." According to Axios, he admitted leaking classified information about Ukraine and Iran to two reporters, the leaking began as early as June 2025, and he "did not coordinate these meetings" with the Pentagon's public affairs office; the report says he also "admitted to being one of the 20 officials" cited in a story criticizing Pentagon leadership. It says that at a meeting at a diner in Arlington, Virginia, Sylvia relied on notes he had taken from a classified report to describe U.S. assistance to Ukraine to a reporter writing a book. It also says that after receiving a Signal message from a reporter that he believed "had something to do with Iran," he "did not respond to the message and instead deleted it," erasing the whole thread; U.S. officials suspect the deletion was intentional. The report also says he "was cooperative with answering questions about interactions with the media to resolve this, and provided his personal phone for a forensics examination," Axios reported. "Classified information is not personal property," Parnell wrote. "We vowed to find you, and we meant it." President Trump told reporters Sylvia would have "big problems, long term problems," according to Fox News. The Justice Department declined to comment on Sylvia but said it has "ongoing investigations related to possible leaks of classified information."
What is disputed
None of these accounts has been backed by a public document; the internal report Axios described has not been released, and the officials who described the evidence did so anonymously. The Atlantic, which first reported the firing on Wednesday, said it came without public explanation and cited officials who said Hegseth had lost confidence in Sylvia amid a difficult working relationship with Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon's top policy official; a source initially told ABC News he was removed for "a lack of confidence." The Washington Post reported that the case "has stunned his colleagues, some of whom have questioned the narrative being promoted by the defense secretary's team." One colleague told the Post that Sylvia "has repeatedly denied that he leaked classified information but did acknowledge having past interactions with journalists," according to the Post's report as quoted by RedState. The New York Times, citing unnamed officials, reported that Sylvia had spoken with at least one journalist while serving on the Joint Staff but denied passing on sensitive or classified information, according to CBS News.
Accounts also differ on Sylvia's role in the war: CBS News reported that he was coordinating the Iran battle plan, while a Pentagon official, in a statement given on background, said he "was NOT a central planner for the Iran War," which falls to U.S. Central Command. The Joint Staff first thanked Sylvia for "32 years of distinguished service," then withdrew the statement, saying it "did not appropriately reflect the full circumstances." A U.S. official told Axios that the acting Army secretary's office had pushed for the original statement; an Army official replied, "Acting Secretary Telle and his office did not advocate for any statement regarding LTG Sylvia."
The Daily Beast reported that Laura Loomer, a longtime Trump supporter, had criticized Sylvia's son Gavin over Gavin's response to the fatal shooting of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk in September 2025, and had urged Hegseth to "review the employment of Gavin's father." The Beast did not report any evidence that her posts played a part in the firing, and the Pentagon has given the leak investigation as the reason.
The disclosure that Sylvia failed polygraph examinations, made in a Pentagon official's statement shared with news outlets, has itself drawn criticism. Some attorneys quoted by CBS News on Friday said disclosing those results could violate the Privacy Act of 1974, which generally bars federal agencies from releasing personal information kept in certain government records without the individual's consent or other legal authorization. "It defies belief to see … [the] leaking of Privacy Act-protected information of an employee in order to accuse that same employee of themselves being accused of unauthorized leaks," said Brad Moss, a lawyer who specializes in national security and security clearance law. Frank Rosenblatt, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who served in the Judge Advocate General's Corps and now leads the National Institute of Military Justice, disagreed that the disclosure violated the Privacy Act, but said polygraph data, which is not admissible as evidence in court, was "unreliable junk information" being allowed to stand in for evidence. Rosenblatt's criticism concerned the polygraph claims; the internal report Axios described says Sylvia also admitted the disclosures, though the report has not been released and CBS News said it could not verify its contents. The Pentagon did not respond to CBS News's questions about the Privacy Act, and Sylvia did not reply when CBS News contacted him on Thursday; Parnell's later statement on X did not name Sylvia or repeat the polygraph claims.
Context
Sylvia, a 1994 West Point graduate and former commander of the 101st Airborne Division, led the J-5 directorate for 11 months; his predecessor, Lt. Gen. Joseph McGee, was forced to retire in October 2025. In July the Pentagon and the Justice Department set up a joint task force to find and prosecute leakers, Axios reported. Last year three staff members in Hegseth's office were escorted out during an earlier leak investigation; they denied wrongdoing and said they were never told what they were accused of leaking, and the Pentagon never released the results of that investigation, according to Fox News and CBS News.
This article reflects reporting through Friday afternoon, October 30, 2026. Sources: CBS News; Axios; ABC News; Fox News, via Yahoo; The Atlantic, as summarized by Newsmax via Yahoo; The Washington Post; RedState; Sean Parnell's statement on X; CBS News, October 30, on the Privacy Act and citing The New York Times; the Daily Beast, via Yahoo, October 29.
