According to new reporting from The Washington Post, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has hired an army of bootlicking MAGA "influencers" in secret Pentagon roles and refuses to say what these people are actually doing inside our federal government.

This band of former military personnel turned online Right-wing influencers turned secret Pentagon employees is reported to include the likes of retired Air Force colonel Rob Maness, who boasts upwards of 130,000 followers on X; retired Army colonel Kurt Schlichter, with more than 620,000 followers; and retired colonel Thomas Anderson, who seems to have made it his life's mission to defend scandal-plagued Hegseth to his 323,000 X followers under the online moniker “CynicalPublius.”

All three of these online MAGA influencers have been given active, official government emails with the .civ suffix, indicating that they've been given positions as civilian employees, rather than contractors or official US military personnel.

Details about this group of Pete's new hires have been few and vague, with WaPo reporting that the influencers were hired as "highly qualified experts" or "special government employees." Beyond those ambiguous descriptors, the Department of Defense has been reluctant to disclose details about what these men have actually been hired to do, despite the Pentagon's regular boasts about running the most "transparent" Defense Department this country has ever seen.

Whatever it is that these men are doing behind the scenes, it's clear that they remain devoted to using their platforms to defend Pete Hegseth and President Donald Trump, regularly launching vicious attacks against anyone who dares to criticize the current regime, even as the Iran war cripples US citizens.

Just last month, Maness penned a Daily Caller article, in which he openly demanded that Hegseth root out "disloyal" government employees who he says have "plagued the Pentagon and the broader federal bureaucracy for years."

Schlichter shared a video of Hegseth praising the sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, telling his followers that "we are lucky" to have the Defense Secretary -- the same Defense Secretary who has repeatedly and publicly called the US military members aboard the USS Lincoln liars, as they've spoken out about the dire conditions on the now-infamous aircraft carrier amid their 9-month deployment thanks to Trump's war.

We are,lucky to have @PeteHegseth https://t.co/LBzUrWrbkV

— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) August 15, 2026

The Bulwark was the first to report on Hegseth's attempts to build a "Pentagon Troll Army," pointing to Jennica Pounds, who's known as "DataRepublican" on X. Recent reporting revealed that Pounds was hired by the US Department of Defense as a "special government employee" after having served as one of the journalists in Hegseth's handpicked Pentagon press corp.

Anderson launched to Pounds' defense when the story broke, stating that she should not be required to disclose her government role because civil servants are often "prohibited from revealing their status because of the sensitive nature of their work."

Adam Kinzinger, a former Republican congressman who has become one of Donald Trump's most vocal and vicious critics, pointed out that under any other presidential administration, the revelation that Pounds was secretly working for the government would have been the "scandal of the century."

"How many more people that are blue checkmarks on X, that are putting out information on behalf of the federal government and Donald Trump and the Republican Party that are actually special government employees being paid by your tax dollars?" Kinzinger fumed.

The Pentagon is paying an X influencer with your tax dollars — and won't say what she does.

"Data Republican" got handed a leak by an Under Secretary of State, freaked out thinking she was set up, and in the process we found out she's a paid Special Government Employee. Hired in… pic.twitter.com/w06WXU33JG

— Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini) 🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@AdamKinzinger) August 26, 2026

It certainly makes you wonder just how deep this rabbit hole goes behind closed doors...