“Pentagon nominee Trump’s tattoo raises suspicions – Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, Appetite Hegseth, has been flagged by a member of the military as a possible “insider threat” because of his tattoo.”, — write on: unn.ua
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Hegseth, who downplayed the role of the military and veterans in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack and opposed further Pentagon efforts to combat extremism in the ranks, said his D.C. National Guard unit removed him from guarding Joe Biden’s January 2021 inauguration. According to him, he was unfairly called an extremist because of a cross tattoo on his chest.
“However, this week his fellow Guardsman, who at the time was the unit’s security manager and part of the counterterrorism team, shared with The Associated Press an email he sent to unit leadership noting another ‘Deus Vult’ tattoo used by white supremacists, worried that this is a sign of an “internal threat”, – writes the publication.
Patriotism, Christianity and guns: what the tattoos of Trump’s secretary of defense meanNovember 14 2024, 16:10 • 15807 views
Retired Master Sergeant DeRico Gaither, who in January 2021 served as the D.C. Army National Guard’s manager of physical security and was part of the counterterrorism task force, told the AP he received an email from a former member of the D.C. Guard that included a screenshot of a post in social network, which included two photos that showed several of Hegseth’s tattoos.
Gaither told the AP that he examined the tattoos — including one depicting a Jerusalem cross and the context of the words “Deus Vult,” Latin for “God wills it,” on his bicep — and determined they had sufficient connections to extremist groups to deliver the letter to his commanders.
In an email to then-Major General William Walker, who was the commander of the D.C. National Guard, Gaither expressed concern that the phrase was associated with white supremacists who invoked the idea of a white Christian medieval past.
“Maj. Gen. Walker, sir, with the information provided, this falls under the domestic threat line, and that is what we as members of the US Army, DC National Guard and the Anti-Terrorism/Force Protection Task Force are committed to preventing,” Gaither wrote.
According to Heidi Beirich of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, some of Hegset’s tattoos are related to expressions of religious faith, but they have also been adopted by some far-right groups and militant extremists. Their meaning depends on the context, she said.
A total of 12 members of the National Guard have been ordered to stay at home, former Pentagon press secretary Jonathan Hoffman told reporters at a briefing the day before Biden’s inauguration. It is unclear whether Hegseth was among the 12 people mentioned by Hoffman at the time.
The AP reported in an investigation published last month that more than 480 people with a military background were charged in the country with ideologically motivated extremist crimes between 2017 and 2023, including more than 230 arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 uprising, according to data compiled and analyzed by the University’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Counterterrorism (START). Maryland