DistantNews
Support us
🇰🇷 South Korea /Conflict & Security

Pentagon secretly hired right-wing influencers for military “ideological screening”

From Hankyoreh · () Korean

Translated from Korean and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Unnamed sources Ongoing story
  • The Pentagon hired three former military officers with large social-media followings as civilian officials, according to sources cited by The Washington Post.
  • The influencers reportedly joined a task force targeting “woke” ideology and questioned faculty and students at the Army War College about their views of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine.
  • Two of the men wrote publicly in support of Hegseth and President Donald Trump while not disclosing their Pentagon employment, prompting criticism from former Republican lawmaker Adam Kinzinger.

Three former military officers who built large followings as right-wing influencers were secretly hired as Pentagon civilian employees and reportedly used in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s campaign against what he calls progressive ideology in the military.

The Washington Post, citing multiple sources, identified the men as retired Air Force Col. Rob Maness, who has 135,000 followers on X; retired Army Col. Kurt Schlichter, with 62,000; and retired Army Col. Thomas Anderson, who has 323,000. Their email addresses used the “.civ” designation associated with civilian Pentagon employees. Anderson, who posts under the name “Cynical Publius,” appears to have left the department earlier this year.

Sources said the three belonged to a task force created to remove “woke” ideology from the Army War College. In May, they spent several days at the college asking faculty members and students what they thought of Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. One source said some students were confused about how to respond and worried their answers could bring negative consequences.

The Pentagon is hiring X influencers with taxpayers’ money to promote biased claims.

— Adam KinzingerThe former Republican lawmaker criticized the reported use of social-media personalities by the Defense Department.

The influencers worked in the office of Anthony Tata, the undersecretary responsible for personnel and readiness, which handled Hegseth’s “culture war” inside the Defense Department. Hegseth, a former Fox News host, has made removing “woke” and political-correctness ideas from the military a central task.

During their Pentagon service, Maness and Schlichter also wrote articles defending Hegseth and President Donald Trump for outlets including The Washington Post without disclosing that they worked for the department. The controversy follows the disclosure that conservative homemaker influencer Jenica Pounds, who has 950,000 followers, had worked with the Pentagon since July. Former Republican Representative Adam Kinzinger accused the department of using taxpayer money to promote biased claims through influencers on X.

There may be more people employed by the government among those defending the Trump administration on X.

— Adam KinzingerHe questioned whether other pro-government influencers might also have undisclosed official ties.
About this summary

Originally published by Hankyoreh in Korean. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

More Stories

From Our Blog