Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon staffers are laughing at his “idiotic” plans to curb press leaks.
The self-anointed “Secretary of War” has been ramping up efforts to stop embarrassing stories from leaking out of the Pentagon, going so far as to reportedly greenlight a policy requiring staffers to undergo random polygraph tests.
But Hegseth’s plans appear to be backfiring. Staffers are responding by leaking even more information in an effort to further humiliate the 45-year-old Pentagon leader, according to three Defense Department officials and two other sources familiar with the situation who spoke to Zeteo.
“It’s idiotic,” one Defense Department official told the publication. “It is clearly an attempt at intimidating everybody to just fall in line and support Trump, and this stuff only works if you let it get to you.”
Multiple staffers told Zeteo they’ve already practiced how to beat the so-called lie-detector tests, which are notoriously unreliable and not admissible in U.S. criminal courts.
Hegseth, who fired three of his aides in April for being suspected of leaking to the press, is also weighing a policy that would require anyone working in his office—and in the office of the Joint Staff—to sign non-disclosure agreements prohibiting the “release of non-public information without approval or through a defined process,” The Washington Post reported last week.
Defense Department staffers told Zeteo that such policies have only deepened their collective lack of respect for Hegseth’s “seriously lame” leadership and “culture-war bulls–t.”
One U.S. official said that because of Hegseth’s crackdown: “I might just start leaking more now.”
Others said the overall consensus among Pentagon staffers is that Hegseth’s war on information leaks is buffoonish, and that they will continue speaking out if there is information in the public interest.
They’re also quick to point out that Hegseth’s crusade against leaks is tinged with irony, given his central role in the initial Signal group chat leak, where senior administration officials discussed classified details of a Yemen attack in a Signal thread that inadvertently included Atlantic journalist Jeffrey Goldberg.
Recently dubbed by critics as “Paranoid Pete,” the Pentagon leader has been facing mounting allegations of being on edge.
Hegseth abruptly fired the Navy’s chief of staff over the weekend in his latest purge of top brass—one of many high-profile departures under his leadership this year.
Hegseth, who served as an infantry officer in the Army National Guard, was also the subject of widespread ridicule this week for his verbal attack on “fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon,” after he ordered hundreds of senior leaders stationed worldwide to gather in person in Virginia—initially without any reason or explanation.
The secretary’s personal life is also rife with scandal. He was one of Trump’s most controversial cabinet appointments, owing to his lack of Pentagon experience, his position on women serving in the military, and an alleged history of alcoholism.
He has also been married three times—reportedly becoming involved with both his second and third wives while still married to previous partners—and has four biological children and three stepchildren.
The Department of Defense did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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