By South China Morning Post | Created at 2024-11-16 00:00:09 | Updated at 2024-11-16 02:29:16
2 hours ago
National Guard Master Sergeant DeRicko Gaither sent up a warning on the evening of January 14, 2021, about Pete Hegseth, who on Tuesday became US president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for defence secretary.
“This information is quite disturbing, sir,” he wrote to Major General William Walker, the commanding general of the Washington DC National Guard, who was helping bolster security in the US capital for Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration on January 20.
Hegseth, Gaither wrote, had a worrying tattoo on his bicep with the inscription “Deus Vult”. A search online suggested to him it was a Christian expression associated with right-wing extremism. “Deus Vult” is a Latin phrase meaning “God Wills It”, a rallying cry for Christian crusaders in the Middle Ages.
Gaither included a photo of Hegseth, who was then a Fox News host, shirtless, showing another tattoo of the Jerusalem Cross. That cross has a long history in Christianity but has lately been co-opted by some far-right groups as a symbol of the fight for Western civilisation.
“This falls along the lines of [an] Insider Threat,” wrote Gaither, who was the Guard’s head of physical security but is now retired from military service. Reuters has obtained a copy of the email.
The email, which has not been previously reported, appears to have been a turning point for Hegseth, who served in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and has two Bronze Stars. In his book, Hegseth wrote that he was singled out over the Jerusalem Cross as an extremist, and pulled from Guard duty in Washington.
