John Ullyot, the former top Pentagon spokesperson who found himself at the center of several controversies in the first months of the Trump administration, said he will resign this week.
“I made clear to Secretary Hegseth before the inauguration that I was not interested in being number two to anyone in public affairs,” he said in an exclusive statement to POLITICO. “Last month, as that time approached, the Secretary and I talked and could not come to an agreement on another good fit for me at DOD. So I informed him today that I will be leaving at the end of this week.”
He said that he remains a strong supporter of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Ullyot’s departure comes in the midst of a tumultuous week for the Pentagon. Three political appointees were put on administrative leave on Tuesday and Wednesday during an investigation into potential leaks, including two top aides to Hegseth and the chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg.
He also leaves less than a month after the Pentagon struggled to mount a public response to a Signal chat among national security leaders where Hegseth posted sensitive details about U.S. military strikes in Yemen.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ullyot ran the Pentagon’s press shop on an acting basis at the outset of the Trump administration, but his tenure proved controversial. He signed the memo that took away the Defense Department workspaces of numerous longstanding media outlets, including POLITICO, and reassigned them to conservative outlets such as Breitbart and One America News Network.
Sean Parnell, a combat veteran and former Republican congressional candidate in Pennsylvania, took on the chief Pentagon spokesperson role in February, and Ullyot found himself sidelined.
But Ullyot defended the agency after the Pentagon took down dozens of military webpages in a purge of diversity content in March, including a story about baseball legend Jackie Robinson’s service. Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier in 1947.
Ullyot served as head of communications at the National Security Council under the first Trump administration and was assistant secretary of public affairs at the Department of Veterans Affairs. A Marine Corps veteran, he also had a senior communications role in the 2016 Trump campaign.