Oh, man. This is an insight into Pete Hegseth that we could have done without but it’s good to have it. Now we know he’s even more screwed up than we thought that he was. The Wall Street Journal dropped an exclusive Friday night, depicting how Pete Hegseth brings his wife Jennifer to meetings where her presence is inappropriate due to the fact that she doesn’t have the requisite security clearance. She also was present with him during so-called “private” sessions with senators during his acrimonious confirmation hearing.
I think those of us who are students of human nature see that the issue is that Pete needs to bring Mommy with him to the big meetings to make sure he doesn’t miss anything. And it goes without saying that this begs the question of just what they discuss. Having known more than one person who has or has had a Top Security clearance in my life, I can tell you that nothing classified is supposed to be shared, period, end of discussion. I knew a couple once that was married for 66 years and the male had a Top Secret clearance and many’s the important thing he never discussed with his wife. He took those secrets to the grave, she was fine with it. That’s how it goes. But probably not Chez Hegseth.
And here’s what is a real scream: the Wall Street Journal is already under attack for even reporting the story. This is the bastion of conservative journalism, the Journal, but it’s stepping on toes. The Journal reports:
Sean Parnell, a spokesman for the Defense Department, said in an email response to a detailed request for comment that it is “pretty clear to me that your story is going to be filled with inaccuracies and will not be written in good faith.” Parnell didn’t clarify what the inaccuracies were.
Get in line behind the Atlantic, the New York Times and everybody else who dares publish an uncomfortable fact. Nobody is supposed to even question anything in Trump world and to do so earns one the monikker “enemy of the people.”
Some senators were surprised that Hegseth invited Jennifer to sit next to him in their private meetings, [when his confirmation process was underway] making it awkward to ask questions about allegations related to infidelity and sexual misconduct, said people familiar with the senators’ thinking. […]
Photos and videos from a brief news conference that directly preceded the March meeting with the U.K.’s Healey show Jennifer Hegseth filing into the conference room and taking a seat behind her husband. Other attendees, who numbered in the teens, included high-ranking military and diplomatic officials.
Healey hoped to discuss America’s changing involvement in the war in Ukraine, he said in response to a reporter’s question before the meeting.
“It’s the detail of those discussions, which are rightly behind the scenes, that the defense secretary and I will now pursue this afternoon,” Healey said.
The media departed. Jennifer Hegseth stayed.
Mommy is on the job. I have known couples like this. I daresay I am not unique in that. And by the way, Bill and Hillary didn’t do it and they both had the requisite clearances.
High-ranking Defense Department officials occasionally bring their spouses on official travel and to ceremonial functions. At a news conference during the NATO conference in Brussels, Hegseth told reporters that Jennifer Hegseth had joined him and had “been meeting with families of U.S. troops” in Belgium and Germany.
But it is rare for spouses, who are private citizens, to sit in on national security meetings, according to current and former defense officials.
“When you have meetings with ministers or high-level NATO officials, those meetings almost always include sensitive security conversations,” said Chuck Hagel, a Republican former secretary of defense who served under President Barack Obama. “If you are going to discuss top secret, national security issues, you have to be very selective. What’s the relevancy of the person you are inviting?”
For a secretary’s wife to be present in such conversations, Hagel said: “It sends a message to the department: Why is the secretary doing that? It puts staff on guard over what to say and to whom. It introduces an issue you don’t need to introduce.”
A high-ranking former official in the Obama administration said Bill Clinton never attended any meeting with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, though he did go to North Korea to secure the release of a reporter. The person knew of no instance in which a spouse attended any official meeting.
“That would be strange,” the former official said, “and would not make any sense.”
It would not make any sense to anybody who knows how government works. The Hegseths are not professional politicians and/or diplomats. They are rank amateurs, TV people who are cosplaying politicians and diplomats. Hegseth is so clearly out of his depth that he needs wifey to be on the case with him and absorb what she can so he can figure out what’s going on. If Hegseth gets any more of his depth we’re going to have to send a bathysphere to find him.
It’s an interesting commentary that Jennifer Hegseth was present in what was supposed to be a one-on-one with different senators. It’s very interesting that only now is that being reported. What that tells me is that a lot of Republicans are having buyers’ remorse and wish they hadn’t confirmed this clown.
Hey, Joni Ernst, how’s you conscience doing today? I imagine that Mommy Hegseth was in the meeting with Ernst. It would be interesting to know. What a fiasco and a farce. Trump 2.0 is a zoo, helmed by a senile orange orangutan who throws feces. That’s what we’ve got on the docket for the next 3.75 years.
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“Some senators were surprised that Hegseth invited Jennifer to sit next to him in their private meetings, [when his confirmation process was underway] making it awkward to ask questions about allegations related to infidelity and sexual misconduct, said people familiar with the senators’ thinking.”
Any Senator who changed their questions to avoid any “awkward” situations should immediately be skewered for that. Their FIRST responsibility was to determine the fitness (or UNfitness, in this case) of the person selected to lead one of the most important Cabinet posts, awkward questions be damned. A prosecutor who doesn’t ask a witness about their sexual relationship with a defendant accused of the murder of the witness’s spouse because it might be “awkward” for the witness’s other family members (or the spouse’s other family members) to hear deserves to be pilloried when the defendant is found not guilty by the jury (which never has the opportunity for this evidence).
A Senator could simply preface the questions with, “This may cause some embarrassment for Mrs Hegseth but it needs to be asked AND answered” before the “awkward” question is asked. But not asking? Uh-uh. Hegseth barely got through as it was so if anything was NOT asked because a Senator felt “awkward” in asking the question, then that Senator needs to be gone.
Another example of the cowardice by the well paid, well protected ruling class.
maybe that was the point of having her there?
Is there some reason that no one, Senators especially, didn’t ask wifey to leave the room, that she shouldn’t be there in the first place? Does nobody have any spine left in Washington?
Well, I certainly remember Hegseth’s wife doing the pre-confirmation “loving wife looking at dipshit husband who screwed up and this will humanize him” Senate walk-and-talk performances! I have always hated politician’s spouses being forced into that or, worse, willingly giving up their personal agency to help a person who can’t stand on their own two feet!! Hegseth’s wife meeting Senators was super-icky because his loss of credibility and need to restore it happened BEFORE he even had the job!! 🤢🤮🤬
[BTW: I was constantly nauseated by the “Ivanka and Jared Show” during Trump 1.0! They were often seen holding hands while walking into the Oval Office, while walking toward the Marine One helicopter on the White House lawn, or walking into the Saudi Prince’s palace during Trump’s visit! I don’t have any problem with married couples holding hands. After 30 years of marriage, my Hubby and I still do. But, if both of us were serving as paid counsel to any city, state or federal administrators, we would not hold hands on the way to official functions!! Javanka were political operatives being paid with taxpayer funds (not volunteers as they sometimes claimed) and I expected them to be professionals!! If they were just two members of the First Family who wanted to appear loving, I would have paid less than zero attention to their hand-holding.]
Hogsbreath also has two sons who are illegally working for him. 1967 law says you can’t have your kids working for you in the govt.
Meanwhile, over at FUX news website, NO MENTION AT ALL about any of this. NONE.
And over at the Social Security Administration, THEY ARE STEALING YOUR MONEY.
What. the. holy. F**K. This is such bullsh!t it makes me scream. And has anyone checked to see if *she* has ties to Russia? This only makes sense if Hegseth is such a lamebrain he can’t keep thoughts in his head any longer than his boss can! How many people were burying their reps under calls and emails of “don’t DO IT”? And what does she know *now*? What are *her* connections? I’m running out of words to express how pissed off I am. GAHHHHHH.