Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of polygraph tests to search for people leaking information to the news media was stopped at the direction of the White House after a senior adviser to Hegseth raised alarm to senior officials there about being targeted, U.S. officials and others familiar with the matter said.

The White House was forced to intervene to put an end to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s routine use of polygraph tests on his own staff. According to The Washington Post, a top aide to the Defense chief complained to the White House that he could be subject to a lie detector as Hegseth’s campaign to stamp out the endless Pentagon media leaks raged.