Hegseth Launches Chilling Charlie Kirk Witch Hunt at Pentagon

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered a witch hunt of 300 of his own employees to suppress any statements about Charlie Kirk he didn’t like.

The Washington Post has reported that 128 military members and 158 non-uniformed personnel—including 27 DoD civilians— have been “aggressively hunted” since Kirk’s assassination on September 10. Two of the non-uniformed were “removed from employment,” and three service members received “nonjudicial punishment.” Five former DoD employees have also been placed under investigation.

These free speech restrictions align with the administration’s broader rhetoric that anyone who acknowledges the often racist and hateful things Kirk said is anti-American. They also feed into the frantic, paranoid mania that the high-strung Hegseth is reportedly experiencing.

“We WILL NOT tolerate those who celebrate or mock the assassination of a fellow American at the Department of War,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell wrote on X in September. “It’s a violation of the oath, it’s conduct unbecoming, it’s a betrayal of the Americans they’ve sworn to protect & dangerously incompatible with military service.”

The Post also reported that Hegseth last year made light of Representative Nancy Pelosi’s husband being beaten with a hammer in 2022. Hegseth says the situations are not comparable.

The man who endlessly laments about the so-called “war on warriors” is now trying (and mostly failing) to punish those warriors for offering their opinions on the killing of a public figure. Meanwhile, the president demonizes the entire political left-wing for doing the same thing. This administration has no right to speak on free speech.