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sean parnell spox

ntbcw alaka gov

2nd 8 26 press suppress, trolls

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an 8 26

dod non concurraNCe LEak parnell rant traitor?

Classified leak reveals 'growing turmoil' among senior Trump officials

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FAIL ON PENTA PRESS 10 25

10/22/2025

by

Kyle Mantyla

Paul Ingrassia, President Donald Trump's controversial pick to lead the Office of Special Counsel, has withdrawn from consideration after a series of bombshell scandals that rendered Republican senators unwilling to advance his nomination.

Fuentes on Paul Ingrassia: “He seemed to me to be pretty far right. ... It says something about the face and the landscape of the Trump administration that a guy like that is tolerated.”

President Donald Trump is demanding that the Justice Department transfer $230 million in taxpayer dollars into his own personal bank account. He can do this, because thanks to the Supreme Court’s recent decisions, the executive branch could accurately be described by King Louis XIV—L’état, c’est Trump.

Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell introduced the “next generation of the Pentagon press corps” on Wednesday, referencing those media outlets that have accepted the Pentagon’s new controversial press policy.

The growing list of ICE violations against U.S. citizens wrongfully detained by ICE includes nearly 20 American children—including two with cancer.

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biz times 8 26

The Pentagon has confirmed that prominent pro-Trump influencer Jennica Pounds, known online as DataRepublican, has been working inside the Defense Department as a special government employee, disclosing an arrangement that remained largely unknown while Pounds continued weighing in publicly on politically charged disputes.

The disclosure is drawing renewed attention to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's relationship with supportive online personalities and comes after more than a year of restrictions on the traditional Pentagon press corps. Pounds, who has nearly one million followers on X, previously held Pentagon press credentials before joining the government.

Her employment surfaced not through an official announcement but through an unusual public confrontation with State Department Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers. Pounds initially alleged that an unnamed "deep state" official had attempted to entrap her into improperly handling sensitive government material.

Rogers said she had offered Pounds Biden-era documents concerning Cuba as a potential exclusive, treating her as a friendly reporter who might be interested in the material. Pounds became alarmed after seeing markings on the documents and publicly suggested she might have been maneuvered into committing a crime.

Rogers disputed that characterization. She said the markings reflected standard redactions applied to material that could be voluntarily released under public-records procedures and offered to publish the documents herself to demonstrate that Pounds wasn't being set up.

As the dispute unfolded on X, an account critical of Pounds disclosed that she was working for the Defense Department. The Pentagon subsequently confirmed her employment to multiple news organizations.

Pounds "serves at the Department of War as a Special Government Employee and is no longer a credentialed journalist," the Pentagon said in a statement, using the Trump administration's renamed designation for the department. Officials said Pounds's media credentials expired in June and that she didn't seek to renew them before beginning her government role in July.

The Pentagon hasn't disclosed which office employs Pounds or described her responsibilities. Pounds said after her position became public that she joined the department to "serve the country in a more hands-on way."

That lack of detail has raised questions because Pounds remained an active political voice online while her government status wasn't publicly known. Her recent posts have included criticism of Democratic lawmakers and commentary involving a retired Army officer and Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who has had disagreements with Hegseth.

Lauren Harper, who holds the Daniel Ellsberg chair on government secrecy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said Pounds should have disclosed her government employment to her followers. The concern centers on whether audiences could distinguish independent commentary from communications produced by someone simultaneously working inside the government.

The episode has also renewed scrutiny of Adam D'Ortona, an active-duty Army lieutenant colonel with more than 100,000 X followers who has criticized congressional Democrats and supported Hegseth's campaign against diversity and inclusion programs at the Pentagon.

D'Ortona was reported last September to have been working inside Hegseth's office. Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson said at the time that he wasn't an adviser or department spokesperson, while D'Ortona this week denied that the Pentagon pays anyone to "post stories." The Army and Hegseth's office haven't provided additional details about his role.

The questions surrounding Pounds and D'Ortona come amid a broader transformation of media access under Hegseth. Beginning in May 2025, the defense secretary imposed restrictions requiring journalists to be escorted through Pentagon areas where reporters had previously been able to move independently.

The department subsequently required journalists to sign a new access policy covering the solicitation and publication of information that hadn't been authorized for release, including unclassified material. More than 30 news organizations-including The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and Fox News-refused to sign, and dozens of journalists surrendered their Pentagon credentials in October 2025.

That same month, Pentagon press secretary Sean Parnell announced that more than 60 journalists from another group of organizations had agreed to the policy. Those outlets included Gateway Pundit, Turning Point USA's media operation, LindellTV, Timcast and the National Pulse, which Parnell described as part of the next generation of the Pentagon press corps.

A federal judge later concluded that the credentialing policy was intended to remove disfavored journalists, according to the supplied account. An appeals court subsequently allowed a related requirement that reporters be escorted inside the Pentagon to remain in effect while litigation continues.

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nation jet her 8 26

the uneasy stalemate between Iran and the United States flared into violence on Sunday after America launched an attack on Iranian rocket launchers. Iran retaliated by launching missiles against Jordan, a US ally. The new round of fighting proves that the Trump administration remains committed to the fantasy that that more violence will force the Iranian government to surrender. In reality, although both sides in the conflict have endured losses, the ability of the US to impose its will with force has steadily diminished. On August 22, retired general Barry R. McCaffrey offered the sober assessment that “the US Armed Forces have probably permanently lost access to 15 Persian Gulf bases. Iran now poised to control access the Gulf States. US will have to negotiate new access in western Saudi Arabia, Israel, southern Europe.”

McCaffrey is an eminently establishment figure, but his pessimistic conclusion aligns with the judgement of thinkers who are more typically seen as critics of the foreign-policy consensus. John Mearsheimer, for example, an international-relations professor at the University of Chicago, describes the Iran War as a humiliating defeat.

Unfortunately, acknowledging defeat doesn’t come easily to either Donald Trump or the ridiculous martinet he nominated to run the military, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Both Trump and Hegseth are cultural warriors first and foremost, interested in winning battles on social issues by purging trans soldiers from the military, blocking the advancement of women and Blacks in the upper ranks, and overturning anything they consider DEI (a broad category that includes even acknowledging that Black soldiers have served with distinction).

With his focus on culture wars, Hegseth isn’t likely to listen to the criticism of figures like McCaffrey and Mearsheimer. In fact, evidence suggests that he isn’t even willing to listen to his own four-star generals who are offering dire warning that the military is dangerously overextended. As The Washington Post reported on Sunday, “Several U.S. military leaders have advised Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that prolonging large-scale operations against Iran is unsustainable and risks weakening their ability to confront threats elsewhere, including the U.S. homeland.” Even before the Iran War started, Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the White House “that the U.S. lacked sufficient munitions—and support from allies—to conduct an extended large-scale campaign.” The Trump administration ignored this caution, and the US is now in a worse position, lacking the military bases to resupply navy vessels in the region (which has led to crisis conditions on ships such as the USS Liberty) and suffering a shortage of Patriot interceptors.

The Post report noted that “certain generals and admirals were more expansive and frank than is usual in telling Hegseth they disagreed with orders to keep providing equipment and personnel when the operation’s trajectory remains uncertain.”

If Hegseth is disregarding the advice of his top generals, it’s because the culture war is more important to him than the real war. Hegseth has White House ambitions and is gearing up for the 2028 GOP presidential nomination. Losing a war with Iran would tarnish Hegseth politically, but he has developed a simple solution: using the resources of the Pentagon to create a troll army of social-media influencers who could create an alternate reality where all his actions were brilliant victories.

On August 27, Will Sommer of The Bulwark, an astute observer of the right, reported that one of Hegseth’s most vocal online fans was also covertly a civilian employee of the Pentagon. The person in question was Jennica Pounds, who posts under the name DataRepublican. As Sommer noted:

Hegseth has gone to great lengths to limit and muzzle many members of the traditional Pentagon press corps. But secretly employing a shadowy, rabidly online personality for the apparent purpose of going after your enemies is a remarkable illustration of the kind of steps Hegseth appears willing to take to fight internecine political wars. Here’s the thing, though:

Pounds appears to be just one of several people enlisted in such a task.

At least three other prominent pro-Trump social media figures who have either worked for Hegseth or almost gotten jobs at the Pentagon have also come to serve as reliable online allies for Hegseth. Funnily enough, they’ve also all rushed to defend Pounds in the face of the criticism that she’s an undercover federal operative.

On Sunday, the Post published an extensive article that built on Sommer’s journalism, both confirming it and providing additional details. According to the newspaper, “The Pentagon has secretly installed several conservative military veterans with large online followings in government roles, declining to disclose their assignments as they amplify Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s viewpoints and attack those who scrutinize the Trump administration.”

One of Hegseth’s troll soldiers, Thomas Anderson (who posts under the name Cynical Publius), repeatedly attacked anti-war Republican Representative Thomas Massie during a primary race that Massie ended up losing. It’s hard not to avoid the conclusion that taxpayer money allocated to the Pentagon was used by the executive branch to influence a congressional election, a direct attack on the principle of keeping the military out of domestic politics.

Shamefully, the Post’s excellent reporting was attacked by the paper’s hawkish columnist Marc Thiessen, a frequently unhinged apologist for Trump’s imperialism, who responded to the report about senior generals dissenting from Hegseth by fuming, “Whoever leaked this is a traitor and ought to be prosecuted.”

In point of fact, the leaker was committing an act of high patriotism, not treason. In a constitutional republic, the military is not the political instrument of either the president or the defense secretary. Rather, the military must always be nonpartisan. If top generals think the military is being pushed to the limits of its fighting capacity, the public deserves to know.

Hegseth is remaking the military into the image of MAGA: an army of white cis-male reactionaries who nurse fantasies of their macho prowess and love the catatonic self-satisfaction of living in a social-media echo chamber.

A perhaps more sympathetic interpretation might be that Hegseth is as much to be pitied as held in contempt. After all, he’s clearly incapable of winning a real war, so has to settle for the illusory victories of his troll army.

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ref wapo

Pentagon secretly installs military influencers in civilian roles

Conservative veterans with large social media followings have been hired by the Defense Department and are amplifying Pete Hegseth’s culture-war fights.

8 30

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon on Wednesday. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)

By Dan Lamothe

and

Tara Copp

The Pentagon has secretly installed several conservative military veterans with large online followings in government roles, declining to disclose their assignments as they amplify Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s viewpoints and attack those who scrutinize the Trump administration, according to people familiar with the matter and corroborating material....$

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x ref

Libertarians against Trump

@libertyNoKings

🚨 Before Massie’s primary, @CynicalPublius ran a relentless anti-Massie campaign, called him a ‘toxic narcissist,’ his supporters ‘dimwits,’ even linked Massie fans to antisemitism. Turns out he’s Thomas R. Anderson, listed in Pentagon, assigned to a DoD office, the entire time

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[### I Asked the Pentagon About Pete Hegseth's Mentor. Then ...

Mother Jones

https://www.motherjones.com › politics › 2025/12 › eri...](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/12/eric-geressy-goodreads-pentagon-dod-pete-hegseth-jack-posobiec-threat/)

4 days ago — Six weeks ago, Jack Posobiec asked me to comment on whether I have a “creepy fetish for Asian women.” That was one of several false and wildly ...See more

Six weeks ago, Jack Posobiec asked me to comment on whether I have a “creepy fetish for Asian women.”

That was one of several false and wildly personal allegations that the far-right pundit and newly minted member of the Pentagon press corps said that he planned to include in “a story that I’m writing about you.”

I immediately understood his October 28 email to be a threat, though it was not made explicit. The day before, I had sent the Pentagon press office a series of questions concerning Eric Geressy, a senior Pentagon adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Geressy, who served with Hegseth during a tour in Iraq in the mid-2000s, is part of the Pentagon effort to instill a “warrior ethos” within the US military. He now leads a team reviewing the role of women in the armed forces.

Calling Geressy “my toughest critic and my best mentor,” Hegseth in March presented him with the Distinguished Service Cross, the Army’s second-highest award for valor, for Geressy’s conduct following an ambush in Baghdad in 2007.

Posobiec’s email arrived the day after my inquiries…This was either an incredible coincidence or a deliberate message: Publish your article and get smeared.

I had discovered that Geressy’s email address was linked to a public Goodreads page with a “currently reading” list that included various books featuring stories about “Asian wife sharing.” These pornographic works, with titles such as “Asian Wife Went With Her Dad’s Friend: A Cuckold Story,” appeared on the list alongside two books by Hegseth and a handful of military histories. They contain detailed descriptions of cuckolding, group sex, and scenes involving “ladyboys”—a term used to refer to Thai transgender women. The page, active since 2021, was taken down the day after I contacted the Pentagon and Geressy about it.

I also asked about a 1997 domestic violence allegation against Geressy, about his dating habits, and past relationships with foreign women. [chinese national?]I inquired if the Pentagon had assessed those relationships as part of Geressy’s security clearance process, and, more broadly, if his personal life might create concerns about his susceptibility to foreign influence operations.

The Pentagon repeatedly asked for more time to address those questions. Eventually chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell responded, in part: “Geressy has served for 38 years in the government, has been vetted numerous times by the relevant agencies, and has never posed a security risk or engaged in improper behavior as this piece tries to suggest. Mother Jones has stooped to a new low with this shoddy hit piece and should be ashamed of itself.”

Posobiec’s email arrived the day after my initial inquiries. The false claims he asked about, particularly the Asian fetish thing, seemed to mirror my questions. Posobiec, who in 2016 promoted the bogus Pizzagate conspiracy theory, gave me a deadline, 5 p.m. on October 29, that was the same as the one I had given the Pentagon press office. A Pentagon spokesperson and Posobiec both denied coordination. Geressy declined to comment. But considering the questions, timing, and Posobiec’s links to Defense Department officials, the situation seemed clear. This was either an incredible coincidence or a deliberate message: Publish your article and get smeared.

Posobiec’s email claimed I have “a history of objectifying women,” and that I had engaged in some kind of misconduct. The email also included questions about my marriage.

Posobiec’s questions suggested one of his “two sources” may have been a real woman with whom I did have a brief relationship nearly a decade ago. Contrary to the email’s depiction, that relationship was perfectly amicable at the time. But it was part of some personal messiness, especially around the end of my first marriage, that is embarrassing.

My first instinct was to laugh this off. Who cares what the Pizzagate guy writes? But getting lied about by someone with 3 million X followers is not that funny. Comet Ping Pong never housed a Democratic pedophilia ring in its basement. But that didn’t make it less dangerous when the restaurant was targeted by QAnon crazies, including a guy who fired an AR-15 into a room that had just been full of kids.

I have done reporting that angered other well-known figures on the right—Roger Stone, Miles Guo, Steve Bannon—and that drew some doxxing and half-assed personal attacks from their allies. But I am not famous. Who cares about me?

The threatened audience for the smear, clearly, was my peers—and my wife. It seemed meant to scare me into spiking my own story. That is not journalism, but an attack on journalism.

This apparent threat became more explicit as the possible publication date we had given the Pentagon approached. In tweets, Posobiec asked his followers if he should publish a story about mistreatment of women by a “DC-area liberal reporter.” After our possible publication date passed, though, he went quiet.

That left my editors and me with a problem. Here was what we believed to be an attempt to strong-arm Mother Jones, and perhaps an expansion of the administration’s war on the press. This was news. But the development also complicated an already tricky story. And if we delayed publication, or decided the story was not important enough to run, we risked leaving the impression that we, and I, had been intimidated into silence.

We knew that we would not drop the article because of Posobiec’s ploy, nor rush into running it before we were ready. Instead, we did what reporters are supposed to do when confronted with a journalism dilemma: more journalism.

My emails to the Pentagon and Geressy were part of an effort to check the information we had gathered. We wanted their side of the story. My questions went largely unanswered, but I kept asking. I talked to more people. And I worked to verify the information we had.

We had linked the Goodreads account to Geressy based on various pieces of identifying information, including an email address he had used. The account was listed under the username Eric J—Geressy’s middle name is Joseph. At one point, the page noted that Eric J lived in a specific Florida town, which matched Geressy’s known residence. Also, some of the non-erotic books displayed on the account were seemingly of interest to him; they included books, like Hegseth’s The War on Warriors, that mention Geressy’s military service. These titles appeared on the page between 2021 and July of this year.

Screenshot of the Goodreads page linked to Geressy’s email address. The page was deleted after we asked him and the Pentagon about it.

The same email address was also linked to other apps, including Yelp and MyFitnessPal, that appeared to be Geressy’s, along with a MySpace page that includes what looks like a photograph of him.

Geressy declined to comment, and did not confirm he had a Goodreads account. In theory that made it possible, if highly unlikely, that someone could have used his email account, obtained through a hack or other means, to set up the Goodreads account. So we tried to rule out that possibility.

I spoke to Nathaniel Fried, the CEO of OSINT Industries. That’s a British organization whose platform matches personal information such as emails and phone numbers to online accounts; we had relied on this platform to connect Geressy’s email address to the Goodreads account. Fried said that while OSINT can’t tell you for sure who signed up, “it’s 100 percent that that email has an account.” In other words, either Geressy or someone using his email and personal information created the account.

I also asked Amazon, which owns Goodreads, about the account. After much back and forth, the company said it did not currently have a record of an account linked to Geressy, or the email address he appears to have used. But they also said that they do not retain identifying information for deleted Goodreads accounts. Since the account linked to Geressy had been deleted weeks before, right after I reached out to the Pentagon and Geressy for comment, this statement gave us little new information. Overall, Amazon’s carefully parsed response did nothing to refute the connection.

“It’s all about whether you are susceptible to a foreign service getting any leverage against you. It may not be disqualifying, but it should be looked at.”

Still, none of that fully bore on the main consideration. That is, whether personal reading tastes, past relationships, or apparent dating habits are worth reporting on. After extensive discussion, we decided that in this case, they are.

For one thing, former national security officials told us that for Pentagon personnel in particular, relationships with foreign partners are a major concern.

Geressy lived in 2016 with a woman who evidence suggests may be a Chinese national. That woman started a limited liability company during that time with a name that references Chinese investment. It was registered at Geressy’s home address, then dissolved a few months later. (I am omitting some specifics to avoid including identifying information.) The Pentagon said that Geressy has never been deemed a security risk. But it did not provide verifiable answers to questions about whether that relationship and company were examined as part of Geressy’s security clearance review. Neither did Geressy.

Geressy has had what appears to be a stormy personal life that has included three marriages. In 1997, a jury acquitted him of a domestic violence charge after an accusation by his then-wife, according to court records.

Email addresses Geressy used, and other identifying information, including his first name and biographical information, also appeared in three data breaches, between 2011 and 2016, of adult websites geared toward finding sexual partners, according to databases that include the hacked data. Those sites are Fling, AdultFriendFinder, which then called itself “the World’s Largest Sex & Swinger Community,” and Ashley Madison, which billed itself as “the most famous name in infidelity.”

The presence of Geressy’s email and other information in these data breaches does not confirm he used these sites, according to cyber researchers.

But as John Sipher, a former senior CIA officer, told Mother Jones, in normal circumstances, a government official who might be involved with such websites and who had romantic relationships with foreigners would draw scrutiny. “It’s all about whether you are susceptible to a foreign service getting any leverage against you,” Sipher said. “It may not be disqualifying, but it should be looked at.”

And there is a second point. Geressy is a top official in a Defense Department that has booted trans people from the military based on President Trump’s executive order that argues that “adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.” Geressy is not responsible for trans policy, but he is part of a Pentagon leadership that concerns itself with subordinates’ private lives.

Trump’s Pentagon wants reporters to be not just docile recipients of the administration’s preferred narratives but active propagandists. That is a direct attack on the free press. It is also an insidious danger.

In The War on Warriors, one of the books on the Goodreads page linked to Geressy, Hegesth cited his mentor to support the position that women should not serve in combat roles. “From my perspective,” Hegseth quoted Geressy as saying, circa 2007, “overwhelmingly most females want nothing to do with combat arms.” According to Hegseth, Geressy had argued that the Army had unfairly awarded medals to some women who had served in combat. “If SGM Geressy was a transvestite—or gay, or black, or a woman,” Hegseth wrote, “he would have three Distinguished Service Crosses and be on the front of a Wheaties box.”

The Pentagon is already beset by scandals in which top officials, most notably Hegseth himself, have been accused of conduct that falls short of the standards it demands of other Defense Department officials and service members. Critics have argued that for lower-ranking personnel, actions like Hegseth sharing military plans outside of approved channels, or the adultery heacknowledged during confirmation hearings, would result in firing. The racy selections on the Goodreads account linked to Geressy’s email may be comparatively minor. But that a public page listing such titles existed until we flagged it adds to the impression that the department’s leadership is not only hypocritical, but inept.

Hegseth has reacted furiously to reporting on some of his missteps. He has raged over coverage of his sharing of plans for bombing targets in Yemen with a Signal group that included the editor of the Atlantic. (The department’s inspector general reported that Hegseth’s actions could have put US troops at risk.) He fired aides accused of leaking news of a plan to give Elon Musk a top-secret briefing on US war plans versus China. Posobiec’s email came as the Pentagon took an increasingly hostile stance toward the media.

Kingsley Wilson, a former conservative influencer who is the department’s press secretary, told me that she did not speak to Posobiec about my story and did not believe Parnell did either. Posobiec also denied coordinating with the Pentagon. Geressy did not respond to a question about it.

But it came amid broader pushback to our reporting. “This is a garbage story made up of false allegations, decades-old claims that proved untrue, and disgusting innuendo aimed at smearing a man who was awarded the Army’s second-highest military honor for extraordinary heroism in combat,” Parnell said.

That response is consistent with the combative press relations posture of the second Trump administration. Shortly before, when a reporter asked the White House press secretary to identify who had suggested Trump meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest, she responded: “Your mom did.”

Similar truculence drives the Defense Department’s recent decision to force outlets that assign reporters to the Pentagon to agree to a policy that bars reporters from revealing news the department does not authorize. Most news organizations refused. (The New York Times recently sued the Pentagon, arguing that the policy violates the First Amendment.) Posobiec is among a group of pro-Trump influencers who accepted the restrictive terms. The result is that the new press corps the Pentagon grants access to is largely composed of far-right activists.

The Pentagon press shop maintains close ties to its newly constituted press corps. Wilson, the department’s press secretary, occasionally appears on a program Posobiec hosts. In an October episode, she thanked him for agreeing to the department’s restrictions. “Now we get to have incredible journalists like yourself who are going to be here in the Pentagon reporting on what the Department of War is doing every single day,” she said.

On Wednesday night, after weeks of silence, I heard from Posobiec again. He said he was “finalizing my story,” and wanted to know if me, my wife, “or your in-laws” wished to comment. His message arrived an hour and forty minutes after I wrote to Geressy, posing some last questions and telling him I was “finalizing this story.”

Trump’s Pentagon wants reporters to be not just docile recipients of the administration’s preferred narratives but active propagandists. That is a direct attack on the free press. It is also an insidious danger. It threatens to make us bad at our jobs. It can be harder work to treat people whom we cover critically like complete human beings, people who deserve empathy and a real chance to explain themselves. If the department yanks credentials for tough reporting, if a press secretary just attacks a story without engaging with questions, and if inquiries draw personal attacks, why give spokespeople, or the officials they work for, any opportunity to respond at all?

The answer, I think, is that in journalism, like everywhere else, we should treat people the way we want to be treated. This story, with its weird personal twist, drove home that necessity. By proposing to smear me, Posobiec inadvertently provided a reminder of how responsible reporters ought to act.

I have worked to be fair—and honest. This attempt won’t appease the Pentagon or the people who threatened me. And the choice here, between appearing to be coerced into silence or maybe getting slandered, lacks an option that doesn’t feel shitty.

But what I can control are the standards I aim for. Those are ultimately up to me. But they reflect the values of Mother Jones, and the influence of other journalists, one of whom is my wife. She makes the judgment I’ll live with.

[### The Brand-New Pentagon Press Corps Is Gaga for Hegseth

The Intercept

https://theintercept.com › 2025/12/13 › hegseth-new-pe...](https://theintercept.com/2025/12/13/hegseth-new-pentagon-press-reporters/)

2 days ago — After nearly all legacy news organizations declined to sign on to Hegseth's rules, the new Pentagon press corps is all his cheerleaders.

[### Hegseth team invites far-right activist Jack Posobiec on ...

The Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com › ... › Military](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/02/13/pete-hegseth-jack-posobiec/)

Feb 13, 2025 — Trump administration officials at the Pentagon invited a far-right activist, Jack Posobiec, to participate in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's first trip ...See more

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an 3 25

South African centibillionaire Elon Musk — one of President Donald Trump's closest advisors — is now reportedly scheduled to receive a top-secret briefing involving the United States' top-secret plans in the event the nation goes to war with China.

The New York Times reported Thursday evening that the Tesla and SpaceX CEO will be visiting the Pentagon on Friday to get "access to some of the nation’s most closely guarded military secrets." Those war plans are detailed in "20 to 30 slides" that reveal exactly how the U.S. would plan to fight a war against the world's most populous nation and second-largest economy. The Times Julian E. Barnes, Maggie Haberman, Eric Lipton, Ryan Mac and Eric Schmitt noted that the briefing comes despite Musk having "extensive financial interests in China."

"If a foreign country was to learn how the United States planned to fight a war against them, it could reinforce its defenses and address its weaknesses, making the plans far less likely to succeed," the reporters wrote.

READ MORE:'We're against it': Fox host says the quiet part out loud in segment about disabled kids

Some Musk critics expressed worry that China has significant leverage over the centibillionaire. Progressive activist Murshed Zaheed opined that the Times' reporting included "bats--- crazy" details about Musk's potential conflicts of interest toward the end of the report. In the final five paragraphs of the article, the Times reported that the Tesla factory in Shanghai — which was "built with special permission from the Chinese government" — is responsible for "more than half of Tesla's global deliveries." Tesla also has a $2.8 billion loan agreement with Chinese lenders "for production expenditures."

Consultant Matt Ortega pointed out that Chinese President Xi Jinping could simply tell Musk to "provide us with the U.S. war plan or we will close your Shanghai factory." Journalist Radley Balko exclaimed that Musk getting access to Chinese war plans was "insanity." Former FBI counterterrorism official Frank Figliuzzi called Musk getting the war plans a "clear and present danger." And author and journalist Tim Weiner reminded his followers that Vivek Ramaswamy — who co-founded the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with Musk — once said in 2023 that the tech billionaire would "jump like a circus monkey when Xi Jinping calls in the hour of need."

"If you give the war plans to Musk, you might as well give them to China," Weiner wrote on Bluesky.

Defense Department spokesperson Sean Parnell implied to the Times that Musk's visit was merely casual, saying: "The Defense Department is excited to welcome Elon Musk to the Pentagon on Friday. He was invited by Secretary Hegseth and is just visiting."

READ MORE:'Mob boss government': Trump deal with law firm over executive order ripped as 'shakedown'

Click here to read the Times' report in full (subscription required).

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Donald Trump on Monday named Sean Parnell to serve as chief Pentagon spokesman and assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs.

“A Great American Patriot, Sean is a fearless Combat Veteran, who led one of the most decorated units in the Afghanistan War,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “He earned two Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart, while his platoon achieved an incredible record of eliminating over 350 enemy fighters.”

Parnell, 43, will be working under Pete Hegseth, who also deployed to Afghanistan while in the Army. Additionally, Parnell was senior adviser at Concerned Veterans for America while Hegseth ran it.

A Trump-endorsed Republican candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania, Parnell dropped out of that race in late 2021 after it became known that his estranged wife, Laurie Snell, had accused him of spousal and child abuse. Earlier, a judge had ruled that Snell should get primary custody of their three children.

In court, Snell testified that Parnell choked her and struck one of their children, leaving a welt. She also said Parnell once punched a closet door, which in turn bruised the face of one of their children. Parnell then told the child it was their fault, according to Snell.

Hegseth Finally Has a Defender—With an Unfortunate BackstoryTHANKS?

Sean Craig

[

In another portion of Snell’s testimony, she claimed Parnell left her on the side of the road without a vehicle and told her to “go get an abortion.”

Parnell has denied all these allegations, testifying that he “never raised a hand in anger towards my wife or any of our three children.”

The judge in the case, however, found that Snell was “convincing,” while Parnell was “somewhat evasive” and “less believable.”

Congressional candidate Sean Parnell greets attendees before President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Atlantic Aviation on September 22, 2020 in Moon Township, Pennsylvania.Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

Prior to his failed Senate bid, Parnell lost a 2020 House race in Pennsylvania to Democrat Conor Lamb.

In a postthanking President Trump after the announcement, Parnell, said he was “honored” and thanked Hegseth “for this opportunity.” Parnell thanked his new wife, Melanie, and “our five incredible children for their unwavering support & love. This achievement is as much theirs as it is mine.”

Trump made two other personnel announcements Monday, one of whom also has a history of multiple election losses.

Trump named Army veteran Joe Kent, who lost to Washington Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez in 2022 and 2024, director of the National Counterterrorism Center.

For the role of deputy CIA director, Trump chose lawyer Michael Ellis, who served in the National Security Council and the National Security Agency during Trump’s first administration.

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/11/sean-parnell-2655776062/

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As Donald Trump has consolidated power in the Republican Party this year, his slow-but-steady takeover has sometimes masked the overwhelming creep of extremism into every corner of the Republican Party.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's embrace of Herschel Walker this week as the establishment pick to win back Georgia's Senate seat is a perfect example.

On the one hand, McConnell's cowardly cave to Trump's chosen candidate is such a laughable outcome for a guy who's hailed as a "master tactician" and repeatedly told reporters that his only red line for candidates was electability. While Walker is potentially electable in today's Republican Party, his open struggle with mental illness and alleged history of abusing women makes him a wounded candidate right out the gate. Whatever Walker's upsides might be, he isn't who you pick if ensuring electoral success is truly your North Star.

Lurking just one layer beneath McConnell's acquiescence to Trump's demands is the unmistakable surrender of the establishment wing of the GOP to Trump. He is 100% calling the shots now about the Grand Old Party's future, and there's no pretending otherwise.

And as the Republican establishment bows to Trump, his manifest dominance of the party has also convinced candidates running for critical seats that no amount of personal baggage is prohibitive. In fact, men with violent histories are flocking to Republican primaries, often earning Trump's endorsement. That is the case not only for Walker, but also Sean Parnell, an Army veteran running for Pennsylvania's open Senate seat. Parnell, who won Trump's early backing partly by pushing a fraudit of the Keystone State's 2020 election results, is in the middle of a contentious divorce and custody battle over his three children. Parnell's estranged wife once called 911 during a domestic dispute, and also secured two temporary protective orders against him as their marriage crumbled. According to the **Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, temporary orders only require a hearing with the accuser; making them permanent would have required a judge to hear from both parties, which never happened.

But now Senate Republicans are in the position of potentially fielding two Trump acolytes, each with a mountain of personal baggage that hasn't even been fully mined, in two seats that will surely play a role in deciding the fate of the upper chamber.

Trump also might play an outsized role in mucking up the reelection of a man he despises: Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. This week, we learned that former GOP Sen. David Perdue, who Trump campaigned for in the run up to the state's January runoffs, might mount a primary challenge to Kemp. Trump would love nothing more than to knock off Kemp, who he blames for not overturning the state's 2020 election results.

Perdue's potential entrance is already radicalizing the race on the Republican side and will surely continue to do so.On Friday, Kemp announced that Georgia was suing President Joe Biden over his vaccine mandate for federal contractors. It's a clear bid to cater to Trump's fringe anti-mitigation, pro-pandemic base—setting up a telling trajectory for a Kemp-Purdue primary that could hamstring Republicans in the general election. On top of that, if Perdue does enter the gubernatorial race, he will lean heavily on the support of Trump, who will spend his every waking breath grousing about 2020 and the supposedly stolen election in Georgia. The net effect would be months of Trump constantly reminding his voters that Georgia elections aren't secure, and that their vote may not even matter in the end. That's on top of the fact that Trump voters already decided to stay home the last time Perdue was on the ballot.

Beyond Trump's impact at the federal and state level, his toxicity is also permeating local elections. Buzzfeed News reports that at least a dozen Republicans who attended Trump's Jan. 6 festivities at the Capitol are on the ballot for next week's elections. They include incumbent state lawmakers, first-time candidates for statehouses, and local officials—mostly running in New Jersey and Virginia, which have off-year elections. But that also suggests that the number of Jan. 6 participants running for office this year might just be the tip of the iceberg.

All of this information is just more evidence pointing to the fact that, whether or not Republicans take over congressional majorities next year, the party itself will be uniquely radicalized with an even more profound Trump bent following the midterms.

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