When Pete Hegseth visited senators on Capitol Hill to lobby for the job of Secretary of Defense, he was escorted by a security guard with a dark episode in his past. Via the New York Times:
The guard, a former Army Special Forces master sergeant named John Jacob Hasenbein, left the military after a 2019 training event in which witnesses said he beat a civilian role player — kicking him, punching him and leaving him hogtied in a pool of his own blood.
Oh, come on. Who hasn't completely lost control and inappropriately beaten someone in a blind rage? I mean, usually it's their wives, but still.
Mr. Hegseth’s choice of Mr. Hasenbein as a security escort is the latest instance in which he has stood by soldiers accused of crimes. He has repeatedly criticized military leaders as being too “woke” and waging a “war on warriors.”
In this case, Timothy Parlatore, Mr. Hegseth’s lawyer, said Mr. Hasenbein was the “victim of unjust treatment by a broken military justice system,” and Mr. Hegseth was proud to work with him. He added, “It is stories like his that demonstrate the change needed in the Department of Defense.”
He sure does have a thing for, um, edgy behavior, doesn't he? Maybe a little projection going on there, too?
