Hegseth Secretly Hires MAGA Influencers to Wage Online Smear Campaigns Against Political Critics

A prominent pro-Trump social media influencer has been secretly working inside the Pentagon for months, a revelation that has renewed scrutiny of Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth's ties to friendly online personalities even as he has spent more than a year restricting access for the traditional press.

Jennica Pounds, who posts under the name DataRepublican to nearly a million followers on X, was confirmed this week to be working as a special government employee at the Department of Defence, which the Trump administration has renamed the Department of War.

The Pentagon confirmed her role only after a public dispute in which Pounds accused an unnamed 'deep state' official of trying to entrap her into committing treason, an official later revealed to be a senior State Department spokesperson.

Her case has drawn attention to at least one other prominent pro-Hegseth account with reported ties to the Pentagon, raising questions about how far the department's cultivation of friendly influencers extends.

A Botched 'Scoop' Exposes a Hidden Government Job

The saga began when Pounds posted that she had never been more angry in her life, describing what she believed was an attempt by 'deep state' operatives to trick her into leaking sensitive government material.

She later identified the official as Sarah Rogers, the State Department's under secretary for public diplomacy, who said she had offered Pounds a set of Biden-era documents about Cuba as a potential exclusive story, hoping Pounds would treat it as a gift to a friendly reporter.

Pounds panicked after noticing markings on the documents, fearing she was being set up to commit a crime, though Rogers said publicly that the markings were standard redactions required even for material voluntarily disclosed under public records law, and offered to release the documents herself to prove there was no trap.

As the dispute played out publicly on X, an account critical of Pounds revealed that she had been working for the Department of Defence, a claim the Pentagon subsequently confirmed to multiple reporters.

A Pentagon statement said Pounds 'serves at the Department of War as a Special Government Employee and is no longer a credentialed journalist,' noting that her press credentials had lapsed in June and that she had not sought a renewal before starting her government job the following month.

The department declined to specify which office she works in or what her responsibilities involve.

A Blurred Line Between Government Work and Online Advocacy

Pounds had built her following largely on data-driven critiques of federal spending and had been part of the credentialed Pentagon press corps before her badge lapsed.

In the weeks before her government role became public, she had waded into a series of politically charged fights, including posts targeting Democratic lawmakers and questioning the relationship between a retired Army officer and Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who has repeatedly clashed with Hegseth.

Lauren Harper, who holds the Daniel Ellsberg chair on government secrecy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said Pounds should have disclosed her government status to her audience, arguing that keeping it secret blurs the line between journalism and government public relations.

The episode has also renewed scrutiny of Adam D'Ortona, an active-duty Army lieutenant colonel with more than 100,000 followers on X who has criticised congressional Democrats and backed Hegseth's push against diversity and inclusion programmes at the Pentagon.

D'Ortona was reported last September to be working inside Hegseth's office. However, Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson said at the time he was not an adviser or spokesperson for the department. D'Ortona denied this week that the Pentagon pays anyone to 'post stories', and both the Army and Hegseth's office declined to answer further questions about his role.

A Pentagon That Has Pushed Out Its Traditional Press Corps

The controversy lands against the backdrop of a broader campaign by Hegseth to limit the traditional Pentagon press corps' access.

Starting in May 2025, Hegseth issued a memo requiring reporters to be escorted through hallways they had previously accessed freely, and later demanded journalists sign a pledge not to solicit or publish information the department had not explicitly authorised for release, even if it was unclassified.

More than 30 news organisations, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN and even Fox News, refused to sign, and dozens of reporters surrendered their Pentagon badges in October 2025, ending some outlets' decades-long presence inside the building.

The same month those legacy outlets left, Pentagon press secretary Sean Parnell announced that more than 60 journalists from a different set of outlets, including Gateway Pundit, Turning Point USA's media arm, LindellTV, Timcast and the National Pulse, had signed the department's new access policy and would join what he called the next generation of the Pentagon press corps.

A federal judge later ruled that the credentialing policy's true purpose was to weed out disfavoured journalists, though an appeals court has since allowed a related escort requirement to remain in place while the case continues.

The Ethics Questions Still Facing Hegseth's Office

Neither the Pentagon nor Hegseth's office has explained why a social media influencer working government hours to shape public opinion needed her official status kept quiet in the first place.

Hegseth's office did not respond to requests for comment on the D'Ortona story, and the Army referred questions about him directly back to the Pentagon. Pounds addressed her own case only after it had already become public, writing online that she had taken the job in July to 'serve the country in a more hands-on way'.

Both cases raise the same unresolved question for Hegseth's Pentagon: after more than a year spent forcing out its traditional press corps and replacing it with friendlier voices, who exactly is left speaking for the department, and on whose behalf are they really speaking?