Trump Pentagon pick had been flagged by fellow service member as possible 'Insider Threat'

[highplainsdem]

Source: AP

Pete Hegseth, the Army National Guard veteran and Fox News host nominated by Donald Trump to lead the Department of Defense, was flagged as a possible “Insider Threat” by a fellow service member due to a tattoo he has that’s associated with white supremacist groups.

Hegseth, who has downplayed the role of military members and veterans in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack and railed against the Pentagon’s subsequent efforts to address extremism in the ranks, has said he was pulled by his District of Columbia National Guard unit from guarding Joe Biden’s January 2021 inauguration. He’s said he was unfairly identified as an extremist due to a cross tattoo on his chest.

This week, however, a fellow Guard member who was the unit’s security manager and on an anti-terrorism team at the time, shared with The Associated Press an email he sent to the unit’s leadership flagging a different tattoo that’s been used by white supremacists, concerned it was an indication of an “Insider Threat.”

-snip-

If Hegseth assumes office, it would mean that someone who has said it’s a sham that extremism is a problem in the military would oversee a sprawling department whose leadership reacted with alarm when people in tactical gear stormed up the U.S. Capitol steps on Jan. 6 in military-style stack formation. He’s also shown support for members of the military accused of war crimes and criticized the military’s justice system.

-snip-

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/trump-defense-department-pentagon-hegseth-fox-news-8cd9f065e54a7cbbaceeec8bae9261a6

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I posted a thread in GD on Wednesday - https://www.democraticunderground.com/100219717759 - that has a link to a Threadreader page - https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1856785877403361524.html - with more detail on Hegseth's extremism, including the Deus Vult tattoo.

[Irish_Dem]

1. All of Trump's picks are insider threats. That is the point.

[Doodley]

3. Their role is to undermine the department they represent, and one person will love that. Putin.

[Irish_Dem]

4. Putin will soon have control of the entire US government.

Yes Putin is thrilled with all of his puppets coming to power.

[NotHardly]

6. THIS

[Permanut]

2. That fellow guard member will obviously need to spend some time in a re- education camp.

Dear Leader will not be pleased.

[Irish_Dem]

8. Or to a Siberian gulag. We are going to soon be a Russian colony and will be eligible.

[liberalgunwilltravel]

5. We are at war

How are we are going to respond?

[FakeNoose]

7. Don't know anything about this guy. He sounds ... just ... creepy!

[Crowman2009]

9. But he's a great combat veteran!

Someone had a problem with me saying that if he were in Nam' that his fellow soldiers would have him fragged. Given what else we know about him, I still stand by this comment.

[sakabatou]

10. From TFG's picks, who ISN'T an insider threat?

[TomSlick]

11. Hegseth claims he was labeled as a white nationalist

based on a really large Jerusalem Cross tattoo on his chest. I can't find anything that identifies the Jerusalem Cross as an extremist symbol, although it is associated with the Crusades.

From the picture I've seen, he's got more tattoos than you would expect on someone nominated for an important office. Then again, it may be that I'm just a stuffy old guy.

[highplainsdem]

12. It was the Deus Vult tattoo, not the Jerusalem Cross, as the service member's letter in the AP article

explains. That is associated with white supremacists. Well, both are, but they chant those words.

Did you look at the DU thread and Threadreader page I linked to in the OP? More info on Hegseth there.

That Threadreader page links to this, from Media Matters:

https://www.mediamatters.org/pete-hegseth/pete-hegseths-book-includes-complaints-about-muslims-birth-rates-praise-crusaders-who


The Times of Israel did a story today referring to that Twitter thread I posted here Wednesday:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/trumps-nominee-to-lead-pentagon-has-multiple-christian-and-crusader-inspired-tattoos/amp/

Hegseth also has “Deus Vult,” Latin for “God wills it,” tattooed on his bicep. The phrase was used as a rallying cry for the First Crusade in 1096. It is also the closing sentence of Hegseth’s 2020 book, titled “American Crusade.”

The slogan has also been used by members of far-right, white supremacist and Christian nationalist groups. The perpetrator of the 2023 Allen, Texas, mall shooting had it tattooed alongside neo-Nazi tattoos, according to the Anti-Defamation League, which said elsewhere that the phrase had been “adopted by some white supremacists.”

[TomSlick]

13. Thanks. That helps.

I don't get the fascination with the Crusades by white supremacists.

With so many Nazi symbols available, why reach back to the middle ages?

[IronLionZion]

14. Plausible deniability

they love using more obscure symbols for exactly this type of situation. For when they come under public scrutiny, they can deny that it's a white power symbol.

[nmmi]

15. White Christian Europeans vs. swarthy brown "raghead" Mohammedans

as they were called back then.

I don't get the fascination with the Crusades by white supremacists.

[LudwigPastorius]

17. Yeah, here is a photo of some of the Nazis in Charlottesville.

Note the guy on the right with the white shield.

[TomSlick]

18. "Interesting" is not the right word.

Thanks.

[nmmi]

16. We in Minnesota were so grateful for the positive image that Tim Walz brought us. Now we have this chucklehead,

Hegseth, also from Minnesota, that takes us back to the kook-whacko publicity of the Michelle Bachmann days.