ProPublica’s Failed Hit Job Just Made Hegseth Defense Secretary

ProPublica just hit the roadside bomb of journalism. Now, the leftist “independent” investigative “news” organization is forced to pick up the pieces of its blown-up hit piece on Pete Hegseth, an IED of political opposition-research style reportage. 

But while it tries to put on a brave face, ProPublica didn’t merely beclown itself with its latest smear job; the news outlet just guaranteed Hegseth’s confirmation as President-elect Donald Trump’s defense secretary. 

A Soldier’s Soldier

It is the crazy nature of leftist scorched-earth politics that a distinguished veteran of two wars, a man who truly dodged roadside bombs, has been under constant attack by Democrats and war-hungry Republicans since Trump called on him to serve his country again. Hegseth is the perfect pick to clean up a Pentagon infiltrated by corruption, callousness, greed, and leftist indoctrination. 

The 2003 Princeton University graduate and commissioned infantry officer in the Army National Guard led combat soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq, also serving at Guantánamo Bay. He was CEO of Concerned Veterans for America, an organization whose mission is to “advance policies that will preserve the freedom and prosperity that veterans — and their families — so proudly fought and sacrificed to defend.” 

As his longtime friend and fellow war veteran Mark Lucas recently wrote at The Federalist, “Hegseth’s leadership will ensure our military returns to the basics of defeating our adversaries, rather than pushing a social justice agenda.”

“Our military is in the midst of a readiness and recruitment crisis, and reform is needed fast,” wrote Lucas, who, like Hegseth, served as an infantry rifle platoon leader in combat. He also worked with the cabinet secretary nominee at CVA. 

Hegseth is a soldier’s soldier, not a lifer Pentagon general. 

That’s why he faces so much bipartisan hatred in the deep state, not because of anonymous sources pushing salacious and unfounded gossip. 

That’s Journalism?

So perhaps it was no surprise when ProPublica got busted preparing to publish a false hit piece claiming Hegseth was shut out of West Point. 

“We understand that ProPublica (the Left Wing hack group) is planning to publish a knowingly false report that I was not accepted to West Point in 1999,” Hegseth wrote on Wednesday on X before the smear job went out. Hegseth attached a copy of his acceptance letter, blowing up ProPublica’s game. In it, then-West Point superintendent, Lt.-Gen. Daniel Christman, wrote that the candidate had “demonstrated an exceptional potential for future service to your country and fellow citizens.”

ProPublica senior editor Jesse Eisinger huffed that the publication was lied to by its sources. West Point public affairs, according to Eisinger, twice told ProPublica “on the record” that Hegseth “hadn’t even applied there.” 

“We reached out. Hegseth’s [spokesman] gave us his acceptance letter. We didn’t publish the story,” Eisinger puffed on X. He then defensively declared, “That’s journalism.” 

No, it’s not. It’s not because ProPublica reporters aren’t journalists. They’re employees of a radical left-wing opposition research operation. As my colleague Shawn Fleetwood wrote on Wednesday at The Federalist, ProPublica is bankrolled by liberal dark money interests and staffed by Democrat partisans. The outlet has invested a lot of time on a “seemingly coordinated smear campaign against Supreme Court Justices Samual Alito and Clarence Thomas,” Fleetwood wrote late last year.  

There wasn’t anything noble about ProPublica’s decision not to publish. The reporters on the story gave Hegseth just one hour to reply to their false premise. A ransom note would have been as journalistically ethical. The “news” organization’s lie of a story was broken up by the truth spoken by the man ProPublica aimed to help destroy. 

Selective Investigator 

Interestingly, ProPublica didn’t go after the Tim Walz stolen valor story with the same zeal it displayed in pursuing the botched West Point piece. It doesn’t appear ProPublica had much to say about the military exaggerations and downright lies of the Minnesota governor and failed vice presidential candidate, although it did work with CNN on a juicy investigation into Walz’s years of anonymous and insipid cuisine commentary on HotOrNotDish.net’s subforums under the nom de plum “DarthTater.” 

Hegseth remains a fighter, not a politician. A week ago, he posted a powerful photo of two Marines kneeling at a memorial to a fallen comrade. He wrote:  “Maybe it’s time for a @SecDef who has … Led in combat. Been on patrol for days. Pulled a trigger. Heard bullets whiz by. Called in close air support. Led medevacs. Dodged IEDs.”

“And understands — to his core — the power of this photo … because he’s been on that knee before,” he added. 

ProPublica sanctimoniously declares its mission: “To expose abuses of power and betrayals of the public trust by government, business, and other institutions, using the moral force of investigative journalism to spur reform through the sustained spotlighting of wrongdoing.”

But ProPublica once again has exposed itself as a public relations firm for the Democrat Party. This time, its bombshell report backfired, and the collateral damage to the left will be soldier Pete Hegseth as America’s next secretary of defense. 

Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.