By the Narativ team
Investigators strapped about 50 officers of the Pentagon's Joint Staff to polygraph machines through August, hunting for whoever told reporters the military is running low on long-range missiles and Patriot air-defense interceptors, The New York Times reported late Friday.
The Joint Staff plans America's wars for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and its officers hold some of the government's most sensitive clearances. No modern Pentagon has tested its top ranks like this, legal and military experts told the paper. The department said it "takes all leaks of classified national security information extremely seriously and investigates accordingly."
The officers were not the day's only targets. On Friday, U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, refused to block the Pentagon from firing journalists at Stars and Stripes — the military's own newspaper — over an interview they gave CBS News in July defending the paper's independence, Politico reported.
McFadden ruled on Friday; the polygraph story broke that same night, hours later. The tests themselves ran through August — the ruling and the revelation landed on one day. Pete Hegseth's Pentagon is working both ends of the phone — the lie detectors aim at the officers who talk, and the firings aim at the journalists who listen.
