West Point Lied Twice About Pete Hegseth Applying to the Academy
West Point falsely tells left-wing website that Pete Hegseth never applied to nor was accepted to West Point – twice. Was the error inadvertent or intentional?
We have long chronicled the descent of West Point from 1.) bastion of American values and producer of American heroes such as Ulysses S. Grant (class of 1843) and George S. Patton (class of 1909), to 2.) embracer of DEI, CRT, and all things woke:
- West Point Holds Annual ‘Transgender Day of Remembrance’
- Our Study: Critical Race Theories Have “Established a Beachhead at the Military Service Academies”
- West Point Now Allegedly Pushing Critical Race Theory on Cadets
- West Point To Remove Robert E. Lee Portrait and Other Confederate Artifacts
- Student Group that Won Affirmative Action Case Against Harvard and UNC Sues West Point for its Race-Based Admissions Policy
- West Point Removes “Duty, Honor, Country” from its Mission Statement
At this point, it is pretty much undisputed that West Point considers race in its admissions process, a situation the legality of which is being litigated at this very moment in federal court in the Southern District of New York. See our latest report here: Supreme Court Denies Emergency Injunction To Stop West Point Racial Discrimination In Admissions Pending Appeal
And there isn’t much dispute anymore that West Point is teaching CRT and DEI to its cadets:
Our military is being attacked from within…our rising leadership being trained to hate America. Judicial Watch has been in the lead in exposing dangerous leftist propaganda at West Point and the Air Force Academy.
READ: https://t.co/9Fg9xIutlK pic.twitter.com/xhAAYURICQ— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) July 15, 2023
So I was not shocked to find out that West Point when asked by left-wing website ProPublica, twice falsely reported that Pete Hegseth, the next Secretary of Defense, not only was not admitted to be a cadet at West Point, but he never even applied.
If you scroll down in this post to posts 2 and 3 in the thread, you will see where West Point was asked by ProPublica twice whether Pete Hegseth applied and was admitted:
1/ Here’s a story about how journalism works.
Spoiler Alert: This is how we decide *not* to publish.
We were recently looking at Pete Hegesth’s different statements over the years about West Point, where he has said he was admitted.
First stop: West Point. https://t.co/TceZdglkmL
— Jesse Eisinger (@eisingerj) December 11, 2024
Both false statements.
Fortunately ProPublica asked Pete Hegseth for his take on the situation and he provided ironclad documentation showing that he had indeed applied to West Point and was admitted to the West Point Class of 2003!
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.
Here’s my letter of acceptance signed by West Point Superintendent, Lieutenant General Daniel Christman, US Army. pic.twitter.com/UOhOVZSfhJ
— Pete Hegseth (@PeteHegseth) December 11, 2024
Incidentally, this looks legit to me since it is almost identical to the letter I received from the United States Naval Academy (USNA) informing me of my admission to the USNA Class of 1981.
ProPublica, for its part, claimed innocence in the whole process:
Hegseth has said that he got into West Point but didn’t attend.
We asked West Pt public affairs, which told us twice on the record that he hadn’t even applied there.
We reached out. Hegseth's spox gave us his acceptance letter.
We didn't publish a story.
That's journalism. https://t.co/TceZdglkmL
— Jesse Eisinger (@eisingerj) December 11, 2024
That’s a dodge, because as numerous members of the X brigade pointed out, “journalism” would be doing a story on how West Point falsely reported (twice) that Pete Hegseth was not admitted:
The story here is:
a.) you’re part of a relentless machine who doesn’t look for the truth but instead how to destroy your opponents
b.) Why West Point shared your goals!? Why did West Point lie!? THAT’s a story. https://t.co/bSMkRWHZMF— Will Cain (@willcain) December 11, 2024
“That’s journalism”
Journalism would involve you investigating why West Point lied to you, not dropping it when the smear job fell apart https://t.co/jmvPWWTfvn
— Sunny (@sunnyright) December 11, 2024
And, of course, West Point then “apologized” for the “error”. You can find the apology at the end of ProPublica editor Jesse Eisinger’s X post about the event (requires lots of scrolling, etc.), or as seen here by X Poster Techno Fog:
"Journalism" is reporting West Point's error.
We reached out-here is their official statement
West Point didn't properly search their records, which showed Hegseth was offered admission in 1999 and 2003.
Now the story is whether it was simple error or something more sinister https://t.co/WsB6EuYslH pic.twitter.com/F87OTjmwvE
— Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) December 11, 2024
Note: Techno Fog got one thing wrong: Pete Hegseth was not offered admission into the Classes of 1999 and 2003 – he applied in 1999 and was offered admission to the Class of 2003.
In any case, West Point has a lot of explaining to do and Republican Senator from Arkansas Tom Cotton is on the case:
Officials at the U.S. Military Academy should not be feeding lies to left-wing reporters about President Trump’s nominees.
West Point needs to thoroughly investigate this egregiously bad judgement and potential violation of the Privacy Act immediately. pic.twitter.com/gQpFjLbLaS
— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) December 11, 2024
Twenty years ago I would not have believed that West Point was intentionally trying to sabotage the nomination of the, or any, President-elect’s choice for Secretary of Defense.
Today, West Point will have to convince me that this was an innocent mistake.
My official (i.e. X) position on this scandal:
As a service academy graduate I fully support @SenTomCotton getting to the bottom of this outrageous behavior by West Point. If it was inadvertent, heads should roll. If it was intentional, people should be prosecuted. https://t.co/txiivOMyfC
— James Nault, CAPT (USN) (Ret.) (@JamesRNault) December 11, 2024
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Comments
The individual who pushed this falsehood to ProPublica should be fired and then prosecuted, along with anyone else who was directly involved.
West Point’s senior military leadership should be relieved of command and retired. Any of their civilian cadre involved with teaching DEI-related subject matter should be fired.
The training of military officers is far too important to permit such outrages without concurrent punishment.
That would pretty much close the doors on West Point and the Air Force Academy. Which at this point would not be a bad choice.
I would suggest the complete removal of any officer currently on active duty who has stars on their shoulder.
West Point went woke years ago. All the service academies need a serious purge.
As I have previously stated , Obama is probably one of the worst presidents in american history. Much worse than Biden or Carter.
1 -Funding and facilitating Iran’s terroism and nuclear program
2 -Setting back the progress in the improving race relations in the US via CRT & DEI
3- Introduction woke military / social polies in the military.
Agree but observed that rot started way before execrable obama: she just put the gas pedal to the floor
Not sure why you wrote “She” though michele is the man in that household – crap – I cant un-see that
One question – since he was admitted, what was the reason he did not attend?
I read that he was also admitted to Princeton at the same time. So he chose to go there instead.
Corsair and James N:
Thanks for the explanation, sounds like a valid reason.
Not sure why I got a down vote for simply inquiring.
Not sure that’s relevant. I applied and after my visit absolutely hated it. Dark, gloomy, medieval almost. Not for me. So I went to the gorgeous, waterfront Naval Academy and enjoyed a 31-year career. My daughter was accepted at the Naval Academy but didn’t go and is now a professor at a college of pharmacy. Everyone has their own path.
Annapolis is lovely, been there many times.
Does it really matter?
Honor is a vague term at today’s West Point. Snowflakes find it hard to live up to.
West Point Public Affairs twice stated that Hegseth never applied there. Either they are terrible liars for gain or they are so inept at finding their heads up their asses. I say sue them anyway. 🙂
could that be grounds for a defamation lawsuit?
They claim it was a genuine mistake because the record was in a database that had been archived, so they wouldn’t normally look there. They only found it after the reporter told them, “Look, I know you looked twice and didn’t find it, but it’s definitely there, look again.”
There’s no action for defamation, because the person would just say he thought it was true, and when he found out otherwise he said so.
The skallywag that did this should be keelhauled.
The Naval Academy would love that!
While I didn’t attend any of the service academies, I am a graduate of one of the service staff colleges. I pulled out my giant folder from that school and looked at the enrollment paperwork. It’s clear from the documentation that student records ARE protected by the Privacy Act of 1974. There may be some exception made for the public release of Service Academy appointments (because those appointments are made by Congress and likely part of the Congressional Record). But, I’d be SHOCKED if the student application isn’t protected by the Privacy Act. West Point not only lied, but almost certainly violated federal law in releasing the erroneous information they did.
Pete should have reiterated his position, let Pro Publica publish the letter, then sue. Nothing like a lawsuit to help correct the record.
I thought about that too, but the downfall is that bad info gets released and once the barn door is opened, then the news cycle is reinvigorated. Better to Nip It as Barney Fife says. Nip it in the bud!
Sue for what? If he hadn’t shown them the letter, they would have had every right to run with what West Point had told them.
West Point got caught, full stop. Had Hegseth not saved that letter, Propublica would have initiated the hot and the rest of the media would be trashing him. That’s how it works, and that’s how it’s always worked. It’s one of the reasons why republicans are so much better in their feet than Dems……by the time they get to this point, the ones that don’t have all their ducks in a row non stop get beaten to death with lie after lie after lie and the ones that survive are those that effectively counter the attacks. Dems—-like Harris and others—-never get attacked like this, and they rarely are given a tough question.
It’s odd, but a bit telling as to their mindset, that they never considered that Hegseth would still have his admission letter.
The command staffs of all the service academies need to be demoted and fired. This is especially true of the feckless Generals at West Point and the Air Force. Enough of the DEI and race crap as none of that has any business in our armed forces. When I was being shot at I didn’t care what color or religion the person next to me or my NCO was.
It sounds nice to wanna fire people, but who will replace them who is not woke indoctrinated as well?
The rot is much deeper than you think: in ‘gov’ , institutions, the culture, and in ourselves.
No, no. Fifty-one former intelligence officials publicly declared that Hegseth was never accepted at West Point. Settled science, guys. Trust the experts!
In other news, the pentagon failed its 7th audit in a row; cannot account for nearly one trillion dollars.
ThE. BeSt. PeOpLe.
Remind me what the alternating CaPital letters denote. Thanks
A true believer whose eyes rarely point in the same direction.
o.O
Snark. Derision.
I used to fly over West Point all the time when I ventured to points north from NJ, and it never looked that trustworthy to me even then.
Is it me … or does it seem like these “administrative errors” only go one way??
Once is an honest mistake. Twice is an intentional lie.
Hmmmm…sure they know applicant records in a certain time period were in another data base. Their current database starred records at a specific date. This was intentionally over looked with the mistake response preplanned .
Is what we see in the military academies today a result of those civilian leaders who promoted an endless war at the cost of lives of our youngest and brightest, that the wound of compromise has festered into an evil that is now permeated throughout our military academies and the tentacles of that evil has become a darkness that hopefully will be overcome by light being illuminated by confirmation of Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary. I am of the belief that this nomination will not be defeated by democrats but by those who place an “r” after their name. Amazing that we have not heard anything from Hannity’s boyfriend about this nomination.
I served over my career with many officers who were West Point graduates. Not all were sharp, but the majority I had the pleasure of serving with and working for were the cream of the crop. My displeasure of what our military has become causes me to tell any young man or woman to steer far from going into the military because they will only become inundated with DEI and climate change propaganda and eventually be nothing but cannon fodder for those who want more money by ensuring we have more wars.