Joe Kasper, the controversial chief of staff to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and a key figure in a recent power struggle at the Pentagon, will depart the agency and take a role as a Special Government Employee (SGE), a Senior Defense official told Newsweek. Hegseth has been under siege following reports of a second Signal chat group in which the defense secretary allegedly shared highly sensitive information about U.S. airstrikes in Yemen. Hegseth previously shared similar information in a Signal group that included a journalist from The Atlantic. The second group chat reportedly included Hegseth's wife, brother, lawyer, and others. Hegseth has denied leaking classified information. Instead, he has insisted the messages were "informal, unclassified coordinations" related to media planning.