Hegseth team invites far-right activist Jack Posobiec on overseas trip
BRUSSELS — Trump administration officials at the Pentagon invited a far-right activist, Jack Posobiec, to participate in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s first trip overseas, according to a planning document obtained by The Washington Post and people familiar with the decision, triggering alarm among U.S. defense officials worried about the military being dragged into partisan warfare.
News of Posobiec’s invitation circulated among U.S. officials in Washington and in Europe ahead of Hegseth’s visit this week to Germany, Belgium and Poland, officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the secretary’s itinerary. One official said the potential involvement of Posobiec, a Trump booster who is known for peddling conspiracy theories and trolling political adversaries online, has raised questions within the Pentagon about Hegseth’s judgment and what he aimed to communicate to U.S. allies if he were to allow a polarizing political figure to be by his side.
The Pentagon’s media invitation to Posobiec, a podcaster with millions of followers online, comes as the Trump administration signals a desire to use the U.S. military in unconventional ways domestically, fueling concern that the nonpartisan institution could be employed for overtly political purposes. Already, hundreds of soldiers and Marines have been dispatched to the southern border and to Guantánamo Bay, in Cuba, as President Donald Trump moves to fulfill a campaign pledge to curb migration and aggressively deport people in the United States illegally.
A spokesman for Hegseth did not respond to questions from The Washington Post.
Posobiec, who describes himself as a senior editor for Human Events, a conservative website that publishes his podcast, could not be immediately reached for comment.
On Thursday, he posted on the social media platform X that he was in Ukraine and shared video of Trump Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in the capital city of Kyiv. Posobiec later said in an online recording that he was traveling with Bessent and had met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during the visit. Bessent traveled to Kyiv as Trump attempts to secure a deal to extract Ukrainian minerals in exchange for continued U.S. military assistance.
In another X post, Posobiec voiced support for Hegseth’s work in Brussels over the last two days of meetings with NATO allies. The defense secretary on Wednesday pledged that the Trump administration will pursue negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, assessed that it is “unrealistic” the Ukrainians will recover all the territory the country has lost to Russia since 2014 and said that Ukraine joining the military alliance should not be part of any peace deal.
“What SecDef Hegseth accomplished on this trip is historic,” Posobiec wrote on X. “He delivered hard truths that are necessary to set conditions for peace. And he showed his true concern for the American soldier.”
Hegseth on Thursday walked back a part of his message, saying that only Trump could assess whether NATO membership is off the table in Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations. Trump followed a short time later by saying in the White House that he did not see “that a country in Russia’s position” could allow Ukraine to join NATO.
“I don’t see that happening,” the president said.
It remained unclear Thursday if Posobiec, a 40-year-old former Navy intelligence officer, intended to join Hegseth’s travel party, which is scheduled to be in Poland on Friday. Other top administration officials, including Vice President JD Vance, also are in Europe for the Munich Security Conference in Germany, a major event expected to center in part on negotiations aimed at ending the Ukraine war. Vance previously lent his name to help promote a book Posobiec wrote.
Posobiec’s history of extreme rhetoric includes promoting the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory that Democrats were running a satanic child-abuse ring. Last year, Posobiec’s speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in suburban Washington went viral after he supported people convicted of crimes following the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely,” Posobiec said. “We didn’t get all the way there on Jan. 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it.” He later said in an interview with NBC News that his comments were meant to make light of what he perceives to be a lack of democratic values in the administration of then-President Joe Biden.
Hegseth, a 44-year-old former Fox News personality and National Guard officer, has taken an adversarial approach with the news media that has included taking away workspace in the Pentagon for several mainstream outlets, including The Post. John Ullyot, a spokesman for Hegseth, said in a recent memo that the move was part of a “rotation program” designed to provide more access to other outlets, though some of the outlets that Ullyot said the Defense Department intends to rotate in already had news desks at the Pentagon.
The White House, too, has sought to accommodate what its chief spokeswoman has called “new media voices” and recently barred Associated Press reporters from attending media events there because the wire service has said it won’t refer to the Gulf of Mexico as “the Gulf of America,” as Trump now does.
Hegseth also has used his large following on social media to attack a former colleague at Fox News, Jennifer Griffin, calling her a “Democrat” who dislikes the president. Another senior communications official at the Pentagon who worked for Fox News, Tami Radabaugh, has amplified Hegseth’s attacks on Griffin. Trump and other senior officials in his administration have routinely targeted journalists, dating to his first term in office.
On Hegseth’s trip overseas, the outlets traveling with him include the news site Axios and three conservative outlets — Fox News, Newsmax and Breitbart. Major newspapers and news wires were not present, as is customary.
During his Senate confirmation process, Hegseth voiced frustration with extensive media coverage of his alleged alcohol abuse and past marital infidelity, contending the stories were based on “anonymous smears.” He was narrowly confirmed to his post after a 50-50 deadlock among senators required Vance, as vice president, to cast a tiebreaking vote.
Paul Rieckhoff, a former Army officer and veterans advocate, said Thursday that he views the Pentagon leadership’s interaction with Posobiec as “dangerous, alarming and unacceptable.” The move, Rieckhoff said, appears to be a calculated effort to “consolidate a messaging machine around them that echoes their messages without objective reporting.”
Rieckhoff, the founder of Independent Veterans of America, predicted similar efforts in other federal agencies would follow.
“I think they’re perfectly on strategy,” he said of the Trump administration. “They’re radical propagandists.”