Trump’s nominee for Defense Secretary has a tattoo that got him flagged as a potential security threat in the military

Hegseth, who has downplayed the role of military members and veterans in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack and railed against the Pentagon’s subsequent efforts to address extremism in the ranks, has said he was pulled by his District of Columbia National Guard unit from guarding Joe Biden’s January 2021 inauguration. He’s said he was unfairly identified as an extremist due to a cross tattoo on his chest.

This week, however, a fellow Guard member who was the unit’s security manager and on an anti-terrorism team at the time, shared with The Associated Press an email he sent to the unit’s leadership flagging a different tattoo that’s been used by white supremacists, concerned it was an indication of an “Insider Threat.”

If Hegseth assumes office, it would mean that someone who has said it’s a sham that extremism is a problem in the military would oversee a sprawling department whose leadership reacted with alarm when people in tactical gear stormed up the U.S. Capitol steps on Jan. 6 in military-style stack formation. He’s also shown support for members of the military accused of war crimes and criticized the military’s justice system.

Hegseth and the Trump transition team did not respond to emails seeking comment.

As the AP reported in an investigation published last month, more than 480 people with a military background were accused of ideologically driven extremist crimes from 2017 through 2023, including the more than 230 arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 insurrection, according to data collected and analyzed by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, or START, at the University of Maryland. Though those numbers reflect a small fraction of those who have served honorably in the military — and Lloyd Austin, the current defense secretary, has said that extremism is not widespread in the U.S. military — AP’s investigation found that plots involving people with military backgrounds were more likely to involve mass casualties.

‘People who love our country’

Since Jan. 6, Hegseth, like many Trump supporters, has minimized both the riot’s seriousness and the role of people with military training. Amid the widespread condemnation the day after the assault, Hegseth took a different approach. On a panel on Fox News, Hegseth portrayed the crowd as patriots, saying they “love freedom” and were “people who love our country” who had “been re-awoken to the reality of what the left has done” to their country.

Of the 14 people convicted in the Capitol attack of seditious conspiracy, the most serious charge resulting from Jan. 6, eight previously served in the military. While the majority of those with military backgrounds arrested after Jan. 6 were no longer serving, more than 20 were in the military at the time of the attack, according to START.

Hegseth wrote in his book “The War on Warriors,” published earlier this year, that just “a few” or “a handful” of active-duty soldiers and reservists had been at the Capitol that day. He did not address the hundreds of military veterans who were arrested and charged.

Hegseth has argued the Pentagon overreacted by taking steps to address extremism, and has taken leadership to task for the military’s efforts to remove people it deemed white supremacists and violent extremists from the ranks. Hegseth has written that the problem is “fake” and “manufactured” and characterized it as “peddling the lie of racism in the military.” He said efforts to root extremism out had pushed “rank-and-file patriots out of their formations.”

“America is less safe, and our generals simply do not care about the oath that they swore to uphold. The generals are too busy assessing how domestic ‘extremists’ wearing Carhartt jackets will usurp our ‘democracy’ with gate barriers or flagpoles,” he wrote in “The War on Warriors.”

In a segment on Fox News last year about Jacob Chansley, a Navy veteran known as the “QAnon Shaman” who walked through the Capitol while wearing a horned fur hat, Hegseth played a misleading video clip from his then-colleague Tucker Carlson that sought to portray Chansley as a passive sightseer.

In fact, Chansley was among the first rioters to enter the building and pleaded guilty to a felony charge of obstructing an official proceeding in 2021. Chansley acknowledged using a bullhorn to rile up the mob, offering thanks in a prayer while in the Senate chamber for having the chance to get rid of traitors and writing a threatening note to Vice President Mike Pence saying, “It’s Only A Matter of Time. Justice Is Coming!”

In a message on Facebook Hegseth posted with an excerpt of the video, he wrote the way Chansley had been treated by the justice system “is disgusting.”

“Trump, Chansley, and many more… the Left wants us all locked up,” Hegseth wrote.

Support for convicted war criminals

Hegseth served for almost 20 years and deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. He has two Bronze Stars. In speaking about his service and advocating for other service members and veterans, he has taken actions to support convicted war criminals and recently said he had told his platoon they could ignore directives limiting when they can shoot.

In a podcast interview released earlier this month, Hegseth described getting a briefing from a military lawyer in 2005 in Baghdad on the rules of engagement. Hegseth said the lawyer told them they could not shoot someone carrying a rocket-propelled grenade unless it was pointed at them.

“I remember walking out of that briefing, pulling my platoon together and being like, ‘Guys we’re not doing that. You know, like if you see an enemy and they, you know, engage before he’s able to point his weapon at you and shoot, we’re going to have your back,’” Hegseth said.

“All they do is take one incident and yell ‘war criminal,’” he said, referring to The New York Times, the left and Democrats, adding, “Why wouldn’t we back these guys up even if they weren’t perfect?”

He said he was proud of his role in securing pardons from Trump in 2019 for a former U.S. Army commando set to stand trial in the killing of a suspected Afghan bomb-maker, as well as a former Army lieutenant convicted of murder for ordering his men to fire upon three Afghans, killing two. At Hegseth’s urging, Trump also ordered a promotion for Eddie Gallagher, a Navy SEAL convicted of posing with a dead Islamic State captive in Iraq.

Biden’s inauguration

Hegseth has complained that he himself was labeled an extremist by the D.C. National Guard and said he was prevented from serving during Biden’s inauguration, a few weeks after the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, because of a cross tattoo on his chest. He said he decided to end his military service shortly after that in disgust.

But a fellow Guard member who was working as a security officer ahead of the inauguration gave AP an email he sent that showed him raising concerns about a different tattoo.

Retired Master Sgt. DeRicko Gaither, who was serving as the D.C. Army National Guard’s physical security manager and on its anti-terrorism force protection team in January 2021, told the AP that he received an email from a former D.C. Guard member that included a screenshot of a social media post that included two photos showing several of Hegseth’s tattoos.

Gaither told AP he researched the tattoos — including one of a Jerusalem Cross and the context of the words “Deus Vult,” Latin for “God wills it,” on his bicep — and determined they had sufficient connection to extremist groups to elevate the email to his commanding officers.

Several of Hegseth’s tattoos are associated with an expression of religious faith, according to Heidi Beirich of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, but they have also been adopted by some far right groups and violent extremists. Their meaning depends on context, she said.

Some extremists invoke their association with the Christian crusades to express anti-Muslim sentiment. The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism notes that in 2023 the words were in the notebooks of the Allen, Texas, shooter Mauricio Garcia. Anders Breivik, a right-wing extremist who killed 77 people in 2011, had similar markings in his manifesto.

In an email Gaither sent on Jan. 14, 2021, which he provided to the AP, he raised concerns about Hegseth, a major at the time, and mentioned only the “Deus Vult” tattoo. In the email addressed to then-Maj. Gen. William Walker, who was commanding general of the D.C. National Guard, Gauther raised concern that the phrase was associated with white supremacists who invoke the idea of a white Christian medieval past as well as the Christian crusades.

“MG Walker, Sir, with the information provided this falls along the line of Insider Threat and this is what we as members of the U.S. Army, District of Columbia National Guard and the Anti-Terrorism/Force Protection Team strive to prevent,” Gaither wrote.

“I said, ’you guys need to take a look at this,’” Gaither said in a phone interview with the AP on Thursday. “I later received an email that he was told to stay away.”

Biden’s inauguration took place just two weeks after the insurrection, and the Army was taking no chances. More than 25,000 Guard members were pouring into the city and each was going through additional vetting, depending on how close they were going to be to Biden.

A total of 12 National Guard members were told to stay home, former Pentagon press secretary Jonathan Hoffman told reporters in a briefing a day before the inauguration. At least two were flagged due to potential extremism concerns; the rest were due to other background check issues that were identified as concerning by either the Army, FBI or Secret Service. It was not clear whether Hegseth was among the 12 Hoffman referenced at the time.

Hegseth has also speculated in podcast interviews that he was asked to stand down because of his political views, his role as a journalist covering Jan. 6 or because he works for Fox News.