Hegseth Invites Pizzagate Conspiracist to Join Him on Overseas Trip

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth thought it’d be nice to have white supremacist conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec by his side on his first overseas trip, according to The Washington Post.

Trump’s new defense secretary invited Posobiec ahead of his high-stakes trips to Europe this week, asking the far-right conspiracy theorist to join the “media” pool. It was unclear whether Posobiec accepted the invitation as Hegseth landed in Poland on Friday, but he has been documenting Hegseth’s activities on X every day.

“What SecDef Hegseth accomplished on this trip is historic. He delivered hard truths that are necessary to set conditions for peace,” Posobeic commented over a picture of Hegseth meeting with NATO on Thursday. “And he showed his true concern for the American soldier.”

“Just a photo of @PeteHegseth doing proper pushups in the snow in Poland in winter with the troops,” he posted again on Friday.

This decision has led defense officials to once again question Hegseth’s judgment, given that he has the conspiracy theorist behind “Pizzagate” tailing him on a diplomatic trip. This trip is yet another early example of the Trump administration’s willingness to go to war with the media. The only outlets traveling with Hegseth on his trip were Axios and three conservative outlets: Fox News, Newsmax, and Breitbart. Everyone else was sidelined.

Donald Trump’s administration is already holding the threat of prosecution over its newest puppet: New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

As Donald Trump’s so-called border czar Tom Homan sat on the couch next to Adams on Fox & Friends Friday morning, he joked that if Adams failed to carry out the administration’s crackdown on immigrants, the two would meet under much less friendly circumstances.

“If he doesn’t come through, I’ll be back in New York City, and we won’t be sitting on the couch, I’ll be in his office, I’ll be up his butt, saying, ‘Where the hell is the agreement we came to?’” Homan said, laughing.

“I want ICE to deliver. I want ICE to deliver,” Adams interjected, briefly inventing a world in which he has any leverage over the administration.

“We are gonna deliver for the safety of this city,” Adams continued enthusiastically. Ultimately, Adams is something much worse than a puppet: He’s a shill, and a smiling one, who’s happily sold out his own constituents for a shot at not going to jail.

The immigration squad’s creepy duo act is especially eerie considering that acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Danielle Sassoon resigned Thursday, two days after acting U.S. Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove ordered federal prosecutors in New York to drop the charges against Adams, in return for Adams’s compliance in enforcing Trump’s immigration policies.

Bove claimed that the prosecution would hinder the mayor’s ability to target immigrants at Trump’s behest, but Sassoon, a Trump appointee with a strong conservative record, disagreed and said that Adams’s efforts were an “improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for a dismissal of his case.”

In a letter, Sassoon wrote that Adams’s lawyers had specifically sought a quid pro quo from the Department of Justice, one which he clearly received. In the days after Trump’s election, Adams traveled to Mar-a-Lago, presumably to make a similar case for how he could be useful to the president’s agenda, in return for being spared from his five damning public corruption charges alleging that he’d sought out and taken bribes from the Turkish government.

Sassoon also wrote that her office had planned to file a superseding indictment against Adams that would add an obstruction conspiracy count, based on evidence Adams had destroyed and instructed others to destroy evidence.

Donald Trump may have given his defense secretary a pass on spelling out America’s negotiating position on Ukraine, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the Republican conference has been equally forgiving.

Senate Armed Services Chair Senator Roger Wicker torched Pete Hegseth’s speeches at the NATO conference in Munich this week, calling it a “rookie mistake” to tell the summit—and the world—that it would be “unrealistic” for Ukraine to return to its prewar borders.

Wicker said that the ex–Fox News co-host’s speech was akin to a Tucker Carlson monologue, whom he called a “fool.”

“Hegseth is going to be a great defense secretary, although he wasn’t my choice for the job,” Wicker, who nonetheless voted to confirm Hegseth, told Politico at the Munich Security Conference Thursday.

He slammed Hegseth’s decision to cede Ukraine’s border: “But he made a rookie mistake in Brussels and he’s walked back some of what he said but not that line.”

The staunch Ukraine supporter also said that he was “puzzled” and “disturbed” by Hegseth’s comments.

“Everybody knows … and people in the administration know you don’t say before your first meeting what you will agree to and what you won’t agree to,” Wicker said.

The editor of the conservative National Review also trashed Hegseth’s “disappointing” performance. Even though Hegseth (sort of) walked back his Ukraine claims, Mark Antonio Wright noted in an editorial that that “doesn’t excuse Hegseth and his staff for the amateur-hour bungling of yesterday’s speech and policy declaration.”

NATO allies were left reeling Wednesday after Hegseth pitched that America would effectively end its role as the steward of European security. He revealed that the administration’s peace talks with Russia had taken several chips “off the table,” including Ukraine’s possible NATO membership (something the military alliance had promised in 2008), the possibility of a U.S. presence in Ukraine to enforce postwar security guarantees, and the end of NATO missions to Ukraine.

The defense secretary’s “unrealistic” comment also drew the ire of defense experts, who saw the admission as another lost chip that effectively forces Ukraine to cede territory to Russia.

It was a stunning show of inexperience for the former Fox News host, who apparently needed to walk back some of those brazen settlement terms while speaking before NATO on Thursday. Hegseth insisted that, despite his having already shown America’s hand, “everything is on the table” when it comes to arranging peace between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

“What he decides to allow or not allow is at the purview of the leader of the free world, of President Trump,” Hegseth said Thursday. “I’m not going to stand at this podium and declare what President Trump will do or won’t do.”

During an Oval Office press conference Thursday unveiling his new “reciprocal tariff” plan, Trump denied telling Hegseth to walk back his comments, describing them as “pretty accurate.”

Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, have been making deals and raking in money ever since Trump won the election, including a cool $40 million to license Melania’s documentary about returning to the White House as first lady.

That’s just one of Trump’s numerous moneymaking schemes since his return to office, which have netted him and his family nearly $80 million so far, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. That includes donations to his future presidential library and a hefty $10 million settlement with Elon Musk’s X. That sum doesn’t include the millions the president and first lady have each netted from “meme coin” cryptocurrency ventures, a blatant means of scamming MAGA supporters.

Melania’s upcoming Amazon documentary may be one of the most obviously corrupt deals. The Journal reports that the first lady, the president, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and his fiancée, Lauren Sánchez, all had dinner at Mar-a-Lago in December, where Melania sold Bezos on her movie. Two weeks after that dinner, Amazon agreed to shell out the $40 million, nearly three times as much as the next best offer and the most the company has ever spent on a documentary.

The first lady is reportedly getting over 70 percent of the $40 million, and her agent is trying to sell “sponsorships” to executives and billionaires for the movie, with $10 million as the starting price. In return, these sponsors would get thanked in the credits and be invited to the premiere.

Some of Amazon’s competitors weren’t even interested in the film. Netflix and Apple declined to field offers, while Paramount only bid $4 million on distribution rights. The only other company that showed some interest was Disney, but their offer was just $14 million.

According to an Amazon spokesperson, “We licensed the upcoming Melania Trump documentary film and series for one reason and one reason only—because we think customers are going to love it.”

That seems hard to believe. Amazon and Bezos are shelling out money not because they love the documentary but because they are cozying up to the president to stay on his good side and hopefully get some favorable decisions from the Republican-controlled government. In Trump’s second term, it’s all about cash for favors, with no concern about appearing corrupt.

The DOGE website is wide open and vulnerable to hackers, according to reporting from 404 Media. Two coders had already infiltrated the site and left their own messages on it at the time of 404’s reporting on Thursday evening: “THis is a joke of a .gov site,” said one, and “THESE ‘EXPERTS’ LEFT THEIR DATABASE OPEN -roro” said another. 

This will be unsurprising to anyone who has visited the DOGE.gov website since its inception—it looks like a high schooler could’ve made it. 404’s Jason Koebler previously referred to it as “just a Wordpress theme placeholder page.”  

Anonymous experts told 404 Media that the DOGE.gov website is supported by a Cloudflare page outside of government servers, making it easily accessible to third-party hackers. 

“Feels like it was completely slapped together,” one of the sources said. “Tons of errors and details leaked in the page source code.”

Musk has yet to comment on the hacks as he continues promising “transparency.”