When Lt. Gen. Brett Sylvia left the Pentagon this week, the Joint Staff put out a statement thanking him for 32 years of "distinguished" service.
Then it took the statement back. The replacement said the first one "did not appropriately reflect the full circumstances."
The circumstances have been coming out all week.
Sylvia ran the J5, the Joint Staff's strategy, plans and policy directorate, one of the most important offices in the building. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired him on Wednesday. According to a Defense Department official, an Air Force Office of Special Investigations probe found that he failed three polygraph examinations about leaks of classified information on the war with Iran and the war in Ukraine.
Then came the bigger news. According to an internal report on the investigation, first reported by Axios, Sylvia admitted that over roughly a year, he passed classified information about Iran and Ukraine to two reporters at two different news outlets.
That's more than an accusation or a bad polygraph. It's an admission.
Officials say he started meeting reporters outside the Pentagon after Hegseth required escorts for journalists inside the building. When the front door closed, he allegedly found another way out.
The case has been referred to the Justice Department. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the department has "zero tolerance for the intentional, unauthorized disclosure of classified information."
Now that the facts are out, Sylvia's defenders have changed their argument.
Some attorneys told CBS News that the Pentagon may have violated federal privacy law by letting word of his failed polygraphs get out. One criticized officials for disclosing a counterintelligence investigation before it was finished.
So a general allegedly hands classified war information to the press for a year, and the outrage is over his privacy.
Others want to make it about politics, pointing out that conservative activist Laura Loomer had criticized Sylvia before he was fired. Loomer didn't give him a polygraph. Air Force investigators did, three times. And according to the internal report, Sylvia confirmed the rest himself.
Two Pentagon sources have told reporters they dispute that he leaked anything classified. Sylvia is innocent until proven guilty, and the Justice Department will decide whether to charge him. His own reported admission will be hard to get around.
Sylvia's résumé is real. He commanded the 101st Airborne Division and served 32 years. That's what makes this so serious. A three-star general with that record knows exactly what "classified" means, and that the information he allegedly passed along covered an active war with American troops in harm's way.
The old Washington way of handling a senior officer caught leaking was a quiet reassignment, a dignified retirement and a consulting job by spring. Hegseth fired him, Pentagon investigators documented it, and the case went to the Justice Department.
His defenders are worried about the polygraph results getting out. Nobody on that side has said much about the classified war information getting out.
No replacement has been named for the J5. The thank-you note has been withdrawn, and the Justice Department has the file.