Pete Hegseth gave the military one order that had the deep state sweating bullets
Draining the swamp is a key goal of the second Trump administration.
Taming the deep state is agenda item number one in that regard.
And now Pete Hegseth gave the military one order that had the deep state sweating bullets.
In Donald Trump’s first term, deep state leakers would feed allies in the media false or misleading information to create fake scandals.
The leak to Washington Post reporter David Ignatius that incoming National Security Advisor Michael Flynn spoke on the phone to the Russia Ambassador was a prime example of this tactic.
Deep state leakers used the perfectly normal act of an incoming National Security Advisor speaking to a foreign diplomat to fan the flames of the Russia collusion hoax and frame a decorated military hero like Flynn as a traitor.
Those games won’t be tolerated in a second term.
The New York Times published a story falsely claiming that the Pentagon was briefing Elon Musk on secret war plans for a conflict with Communist China.
President Trump declared the story fake news and said the only reason Musk was at the Pentagon was for DOGE business.
“He’s there for DOGE, not there for China, and if you ever mentioned China, I think he’d walk out of the room,” Trump stated.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth confirmed that the Times’ story was false.
“We welcomed him today to the Pentagon to talk about DOGE, to talk about efficiencies, to talk about innovations,” Hegseth told reporters. “It was a great, informal conversation. The rest of that reporting was fake. There was no war plans, there was no Chinese war plans. There was no secret plans.”
Musk slammed the Times as “pure propaganda” and called for the prosecution of the leakers.
“The New York Times is pure propaganda,” Musk wrote on X. “Also, I look forward to the prosecutions of those at the Pentagon who are leaking maliciously false information to NYT. They will be found.”
The deep state leakers who fed the Times this will find no safe harbor.
Hegseth ordered lie detector tests as part of an investigation to identify – and likely prosecute – the leakers.
“Recent unauthorized disclosures of national security information involving sensitive communications with principals within the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) demand immediate and thorough investigation,” Hegseth’s Chief of staff Joe Kasper wrote in a letter to Pentagon employees.
Kasper added that the leakers will face criminal prosecution for “unauthorized disclosure.”
“If this effort results in information identifying a party responsible for an unauthorized disclosure,” then the leaker “will be referred to the appropriate criminal entity for criminal prosecution,” he added.
.@DeptofDefense is launching a law enforcement and intel investigation at the Pentagon — with polygraphs — on DOD personnel to hunt for leaks. It will have a chilling effect on information. In memo, @SecDef Pete Hegseth’s chief of staff says personnel will be reported to the… pic.twitter.com/g8yNet8oi1
— Tara Copp (@TaraCopp) March 22, 2025
