Donald Trump wants to crush The Swamp. The leaks, the sneaks, and the secrets are all there. Our writers, David Gardner, Farrah Tomazin, and Sarah Ewall-Wice, are sifting through the ooze so you don’t have to. Don’t miss out. Read this exclusive extract from the latest edition of The Swamp—then subscribe to keep up to date with the news they don’t want you to know.
Pete Hegseth stormed into the Pentagon as a fire-breathing culture warrior. After the Supreme Court backed his ban on transgender troops, he declared his war on wokeness won and bragged there would be “no more dudes in dresses” in Trump’s military.
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A few weeks into his tenure, he was doubling down on fighting DEI by putting 67 DoD ministry staffers on administrative leave after a February internal review identified their positions as “promoting or inculcating gender ideology.”
Two more workers, “Gender Advisor” employees in the Women, Peace, and Security Cell in the Combatant Commands division, were also suspended for the same reason. Hegseth was on a roll.
But then the department began to roll over. The warriors became worriers. Hegseth was more concerned with banning soldiers from using hair extensions and nail polish than sharing classified attack plans with Signal chat groups.
And now, right outside his office door, things have taken another awkward turn with 65 of the 67 suspended Pentagon workers being told to return to their jobs after a second review found the first review got it all wrong.
The gender advisors were quietly ushered back to their desks, as well.
Six months into his job, Hegseth’s greatest achievement is that he hasn’t been fired. After all his big talk of rooting out the woke culture in the DoD, the Defense Secretary has been left playing, well, defense.
To add insult to injury, he has now employed a team to “monitor intimate spaces” to ensure ongoing compliance with Trump’s Executive Order 14168: “Defending Women From Gender Ideology.”
It’s not clear what bathroom monitoring will actually involve. Surveillance cameras? Genital checks? Glass stalls?
Other initiatives outlined in the 19-page memo include stripping the term “gender” from all communications; reconfiguring email systems to turn off any pronoun prompts; and canceling gender-focused leadership training.
It’s the monitoring of intimate spaces that has staff bemused. After all, as one federal worker told The Swamp, why spend time hunting out trans people when you’ve already kicked most of them out of the military?
One bit of good news if you’re reading, Pete. Normally, we don’t reveal sources, but this time we’ll tell you this embarrassment is courtesy of the Freedom of Information Act and not one of the many leaks you’re battling. But for everyone else at the Pentagon, keep leaking to The Swamp... you know where to find us.
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