Donald Trump’s Pentagon pick Pete Hegseth labelled as ‘Insider Threat’ due to ‘white supremacist’ tattoo

Pete Hegseth has previously been called out for downplaying the role of military members and veterans in the January 6 attacks, and railed against the Pentagon’s subsequent efforts to address extremism in the ranks. He had also flagged that he was pulled by the District of Columbia National Guard from guarding Joe Biden’s inauguration after being “unfairly identified” as an extremist due to a 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 reading “Deus Vult” that’s been used by white supremacists, concerned it was an indication of an “Insider Threat.”

Hegseth, on multiple occasions, has been accused of downplaying the amount of extremism in the military and was one of the Trump supporters who downplayed the role of the military in the January riots.

Amid the widespread condemnation the day after the assault, Hegseth took a different approach. On a panel on Fox News, Hegseth portrayed the crowd as patriots, saying they “love freedom” and were “people who love our country” who had “been re-awoken to the reality of what the left has done” to their country.

In his book ‘The War on Warriors’, Hegseth alleged that the Pentagon had overreacted to the riots by addressing extremism, and has taken leadership to task for the military’s efforts to remove people it deemed white supremacists and violent extremists from the ranks.

“America is less safe, and our generals simply do not care about the oath that they swore to uphold. The generals are too busy assessing how domestic extremists’ wearing Carhartt jackets will usurp our democracy’ with gate barriers or flagpoles,” he wrote in the book.

(With inputs from AP)