Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth, whose tenure on the Pentagon has been something however clean, not too long ago threatened his staffers with polygraph exams in a frantic bid to cease leaks from inside his division.
In line with The Wall Road Journal, Hegseth misplaced it final month after The New York Occasions appropriately reported that Elon Musk had been scheduled to attend a top-secret army briefing on U.S. plans for China. President Donald Trump in the end barred Musk from the assembly, however the leak infuriated each Hegseth and Trump, setting off alarm bells throughout the Pentagon.
Hegseth reportedly erupted, screaming at then-acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Employees Christopher Grey: “I’ll hook you up to a fucking polygraph!”
It wasn’t an remoted outburst. The Journal additionally reported Hegseth accused Joint Employees Director Doug Sims of leaking the Musk assembly and threatened to strap him right into a lie detector, too. Neither man ended up taking one, however the threats alone communicate volumes.
The Occasions of London summed it up, writing Hegseth has created “an atmosphere of intimidation.” A Protection official informed the paper, “The extraordinary thing is that lie detector tests are being threatened not to uncover potential anti-President Trump civil servants but to catch political appointees suspected of leaking classified or sensitive information.”
There’s an irony right here. Hegseth is obsessive about holding tabs on his workers whereas overtly screwing up his personal job. He was the one sharing particulars of a deliberate strike on Houthi rebels in Yemen over a Sign group chat that erroneously included The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief. Extra not too long ago, he blabbed about the identical mission in an unclassified group chat together with his brother, his private lawyer, and his spouse.
It will get worse. On Thursday, it was reported that Hegseth arrange an unsecured web connection—often known as a “dirty” line—in his workplace to bypass Pentagon safety protocols and use Sign on his private pc. Sign, after all, isn’t permitted for labeled communication, not to mention army operations.
“What I’ve seen with Hegseth—never in my life have I ever seen this,” one former Pentagon official informed CNN.
None of that has slowed Hegseth’s paranoia. Sources informed Politico the scenario in Hegseth’s workplace is now a “knife fight.” Senior advisers have been fired or give up. Joe Kasper, his chief of workers, is on his method out. His “inner circle” has shrunk to a single junior, soon-to-retire Marine appearing as his high adviser. In line with the Journal, Hegseth’s entrance workplace now not has a chief of workers, deputy chief, or senior adviser—feeding speak of a full-on revolving door.
The chaos is beginning to rattle even Republicans, a few of whom have referred to as for Hegseth to resign. “I didn’t believe he had the requisite experience and skills to handle the toughest job in the Cabinet before he was confirmed, and I’ve seen nothing in his performance to disconfirm that judgment,” Eric Edelman, a former high Pentagon official underneath George W. Bush, informed the Journal.
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He’s not the one Cupboard member cracking underneath stress. In February, Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem additionally threatened her workers with polygraphs after leaks from her division. It’s a sample: insecure, unqualified Cupboard members lashing out once they lose management, solely to have these threats leak, which simply fuels the spiral.
However with Hegseth, the stakes are even larger. He by no means ought to have been confirmed within the first place. He barely made it by means of the Senate after his troubling previous—heavy ingesting, alleged sexual abuse, and 0 actual {qualifications}—got here underneath scrutiny. Now, with nationwide safety at stake and Trump watching his each transfer, the stress is boiling over.
And if this newest leak is any indication, it’s solely getting worse.
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