Honesty, Humility, Integrity: Pete Hegseth Fails to Meet Standards He Claims Trans Service Members Lack
Amid the torrent of scandal and legal fights characterizing Donald Trump’s second term, the United States faces a moral and ethical question about what it means to be honest, humble, to have integrity.
On the one hand, you have over forty (thirty-two, eight, two) plaintiffs, challenging Donald Trump’s ban on their service in the military. They include Commander Emily Shilling, a naval aviator who flew over 60 combat missions before serving as a test pilot and now leading acquisition programs, Lieutenant Colonel Ashley Davis, who serves as an Air Battle Manager flying the E-3 AWACS, Major Minerva Bettis, who serves as an Air Force weapons instructor at Nellis Air Force Base, First Lieutenant Sean Kersch-Hamar, who serves as an Air Force weapons systems officer, Master Sergeant Logan Ireland, who serves as Flight Chief in the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations, Staff Sergeant Vera Wolf, who serves as an Air Force weapons specialist.
While this is just a selection of the 40 plaintiffs, these happen to be the kinds of people who make strikes like those launched against the Houthis on March 15 happen.
These plaintiffs are being kicked out of the military for no other reason than because they are transgender. To justify kicking out these service members, Donald Trump accused all transgender people of lacking the honesty, humility, and integrity, not to mention the “warrior ethos,” to serve in the armed forces, a claim adopted in DOD’s implementation of Trump’s order.
They are being kicked out by Pete Hegseth.
During his confirmation hearing to be Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth confessed to serial adultery. He confessed to that as a way to dodge questions about drinking before work, spousal abuse, and sexual misconduct. He confessed to serial infidelity but denied the other allegations.
After denying the allegations, Hegseth refused to say whether showing up to work drunk, engaging in spousal abuse, or sexually assaulting a woman would disqualify him from serving as Secretary of Defense.
Pete Hegseth refused to say whether showing up to work drunk, engaging in spousal abuse, or sexually assaulting a woman would prove he lacked the honesty or integrity to work at DOD, much less lead it.
But questions about Hegseth’s fitness did not end with his confirmation hearings.
In his time as Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth has brought his spouse to sensitive international meetings. To be fair, he may simply not know better. Along with serial infidelity, in his confirmation hearing, Hegseth confessed that he had conducted almost no such international negotiations in the past. Maybe he simply doesn’t know that including spouses undermines candor and security?
Hegseth also hired his brother, Phil, who did PR at the non-profit which Hegseth financially ruined, to a senior position at DOD. This at least looks like nepotism, the hiring of someone because of who he is, other than merit. As he has with his spouse, Hegseth has toted his brother along to meetings: to his first big overseas trip, to Gitmo, to the Conor McGregor meeting at the White House.
All that might not have been enough to revisit questions about Hegseth’s honestly, humility, and integrity.
But then, Pete Hegseth — the guy kicking out every trans service member based on a claim they lack honesty, humility, and integrity — shared National Defense Information on an insecure Signal chat that happened to include a journalist. While the compromise of attack information did not, in real time, get anyone killed, between his comments on the chat and those of Vice President JD Vance and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, the compromise may expose service members — people like Commander Shilling, Lieutenant Colonel Davis, Major Bettis, First Lieutenant Kersch-Hamar, Master Sergeant Ireland, or Staff Sergeant Wolf — to possible legal danger going forward, because they raise questions about the presidential authorization for an operation that knowingly targeted a civilian residence.
Just as troubling, after his reckless actions were exposed, Hegseth has persistently lied about how sensitive the information is.
He has refused to accept responsibility for his own actions.
As the NYT describes, Hegseth’s intransigence has led those flying such missions to question whether the Secretary of Defense is going to get them killed, in part because he lacks the humility to admit that he did something wrong.
On air bases, in aircraft carrier “ready rooms” and in communities near military bases this week, there was consternation. The news that senior officials in the Trump administration discussed plans on Signal, a commercial messaging app, for an impending attack angered and bewildered men and women who have taken to the air on behalf of the United States.
The mistaken inclusion of the editor in chief of The Atlantic in the chat and Mr. Hegseth’s insistence that he did nothing wrong by disclosing the secret plans upend decades of military doctrine about operational security, a dozen Air Force and Navy fighter pilots said.
Worse, they said, is that going forward, they can no longer be certain that the Pentagon is focused on their safety when they strap into cockpits.
“The whole point about aviation safety is that you have to have the humility to understand that you are imperfect, because everybody screws up. Everybody makes mistakes,” said Lt. John Gadzinski, a retired Navy F-14 pilot who flew combat missions from aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf. “But ultimately, if you can’t admit when you’re wrong, you’re going to kill somebody because your ego is too big.”
And that’s why I keep obsessing about the fact that Hegseth continues to lie about the Signal chat even as DOJ continues to insist that Commander Shilling, Lieutenant Colonel Davis, Major Bettis, First Lieutenant Kersch-Hamar, Master Sergeant Ireland, or Staff Sergeant Wolf lack honesty, integrity, and humility.
Hegseth is relying on such claims even though there’s absolutely no evidence to support it in the case of these 40-some named plaintiffs.
Here’s how Judge Benjamin Settle, a George W. Bush appointee, described it in the third of three orders freezing the trans ban.
Commander Emily “Hawking” Shilling, for example, transitioned within the Navy beginning in the fall of 2021 in reliance on the Austin Policy. She has been a Naval Aviator for 19 years. She has flown more than 60 combat missions, including in Iraq and Afghanistan, and was a Navy test pilot. She has 1750 flight hours in high performance Navy jets—including the F/A-18 Super Hornet—and has earned three air medals. She asserts without contradiction that the Navy already spent $20 million training her. There is no claim and no evidence that she is now, or ever was, a detriment to her unit’s cohesion, or to the military’s lethality or readiness, or that she is mentally or physically unable to continue her service. There is no claim and no evidence that Shilling herself is dishonest or selfish, or that she lacks humility or integrity. Yet absent an injunction, she will be promptly discharged solely because she is transgender.
Settle reached his conclusion via different means that Judge Ana Reyes, whose injunction focused on the clear animus targeting trans service members.
Settle didn’t deny there was animus; he just didn’t rely on it, focusing instead on DOD’s failure to present any evidence to support the stated goals of the trans ban, a ban that goes further even than the Mattis policy approved in Trump’s first term, which permitted trans members already serving, including some of the plaintiffs, to remain. DOJ relied on suppositions made in formulating the Mattis policy during Trump’s first term and ignored the reality of the last seven years — the honorable service of the plaintiffs who’ve served openly — that debunked those suppositions.
But Settle did hold that the stigma of being fired based on these shoddy claims would likely support a due process claim, even if DOD ousts these plaintiffs via an honorable discharge, which the government claims would eliminate any stigma.
The Military Ban and Hegseth Policy’s demeaning language is repeated even here in the government’s response: “The Commander has determined that it is ‘the policy of the United States Government to establish high standards for troop . . . honesty, humility, uniformity, and integrity,’ and that this policy is ‘inconsistent with the . . . constraints on individuals with gender dysphoria.’” Dkt. 76 at 41 (quoting Military Ban). In effect, the government, in line with the Military Ban and Hegseth Policy, posits that, as a class, transgender service members are only in the military as the result of a radical, insane, false gender ideology. See, e.g., Military Excellence and Readiness Fact Sheet (“During the Biden Administration, the Department of Defense allowed gender insanity to pervade our military organizations.”). There is no evidence in the record supporting these assertions.
One discharged from service based on these grounds is plainly stigmatized. The accuracy of the government’s proclamations is obviously contested, and plaintiffs are about to lose their military careers because of them. An honorable discharge does not erase or sanitize the language the government uses to describe the character of separated service members under the Military Ban and Hegseth Policy.
Plaintiffs have demonstrated the Chaudhry elements of a stigma-plus Procedural Due Process claim. They have also demonstrated that the Military Ban violates “bedrock” Due Process fairness principles precluding arbitrary or vindictive measures that upset settled expectations. On the record before the Court, they are likely to succeed on the merits of their Procedural Due Process claim.
There’s been a lot of attention to the arbitrary claims Trump has used to target one after another law firm (even while protecting Jones Day), though in my opinion far too many journalists have treated these grievances as real, ignoring the falsehoods Trump used to manufacture grievance. There has, similarly, been a lot of attention on the protected free speech that the government has used to justify kidnapping Mahmud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk, and others.
That’s all justified attention.
But there’s something especially noxious about this manufactured claim — the enthusiasm with which Hegseth has adopted Trump’s slander of all trans people as dishonest and lacking integrity.
When it came to his own alleged conduct, for which there was at least credible (if aggressively contested) evidence, Hegseth refused to concede whether dishonesty would disqualify him. Yet since then, Hegseth has used baseless insinuations about honesty, integrity, and humility to kick out people who’ve served honorably for two decades.
Pete Hegseth is lying about how dangerous his actions were. In doing so, he’s putting his career above those doing the riskiest work.
And all the while he’s slandering others about lacking honesty, integrity, and humility.
Ana Reyes opinion granting preliminary injunction
Doesn’t the Hegseth DoD’s plan to kick them out with the “Honorable Discharge” directly controvert the entire Trump administration argument regarding the unfitness of trans service members?
I am neither a lawyer nor a veteran. But my understanding of Honorable Discharge is that it acknowledges the recipient did, indeed, meet at least minimal standards for their branch of the military. Trump, Hegseth, and their minions are claiming trans folk are incapable of this, yet through this CYA move they seem (to me) to demonstrate the falsehood of their own craven claims.
Great question. I’d blown past this as it read to me as just part of the BS blather surrounding any of the destructive nonsense – hey, engage with these words so you get covered in BS and time goes on while destruction continues! It is however a potentially concrete anchor for effective pushback.
Honorable or (for officers) under honorable conditions discharges usually mean the person did not come to the attention of the authorities via charges various and sundry leading to mast or courts-martial.
There are benefits to the honorable discharge within the VA, options that are removed in sequence the farther one goes down the ladder (OTH, BCD, DD or Dismissed). The General discharge doesn’t normally carry penalties (it’s assumed to be honorable in that way) and was used for sexual orientation discharges before ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’. If someone isn’t a good fit but otherwise OK, no need to punish them.
I’m actually surprised that Hegseth wasn’t going the Other than Honorable route but that may still require a court martial proceeding to pin the blame on the service member. The cruelty and finger-pointing is the point with this mean-spirited hyper-macho crew.
Keep in mind that the violation of UCMJ articles would have to be proven, even under Article 134 (bringing discredit on the services) through non-judicial punishment (i.e. Captain’s Mast) or a court martial (there are three principal levels), and FWIW being transgender was not an enforced crime under UCMJ.
Is the Honorable Discharge strategy a means to evade this? As I said above, I am not a veteran or a lawyer. I was not asking my original question rhetorically; I really want to know if it creates a loophole that the discharged service members can potentially exploit.
For Ginevra: I suspect they had no real choice here because OTH (or worse) requires a proceeding that the WH could not stage manage. The minions likely wanted to do OTH for sheer meanness, but couldn’t swing it, because the service member can demand a court martial to force the evidence into the open. In terms of eligibility for unemployment assistance the Honorable and General discharges function identically. The requirement for a proceeding differs from the civil arm but even the civil arm has protections that Convict-1 / Krasnov barreled through, daring the courts to stop them.
hegseth is cosplaying as a tough guy, white supremacy tattoos and all.
isn’t it pretty much textbook: the things these guys fear the most, accuse others of being, are the things they secretly are?
i guess another version is the old schoolyard taunt: “takes one to know one.”
Interesting and somewhat amusing to me is that Hegseth was educated at Princeton and then Harvard. Tells you something about both institutions, somewhat contrary to their reputations.
As for the tough guy cosplay, it is a clear indication of deep insecurity.
What does it tell you, gmoke, about Harvard and Princeton, that Pete Hegseth attended both? Ted Cruz went to Princeton. So did Maria Sotomayor, Marie Yovanovich, and Elena Kagan. Harvard grads are scattered all across the political and legal landscape.
I don’t understand the point you’re making, partly because people get accepted at schools when they are teenagers; Hegseth likely did not foreshadow his current unfitness as a high school kid.
Can someone explain why hegseth and the rest of the trump regime have made no reference to the missing tank crew in Lithuanua?
Not a clue, and the rot runs from Convict-1 / Krasnov on down. It is a Putinesque attitude (DKos has daily reminders of videos from RU forces about the meat grinder assaults) and today they weren’t just on crutches but wheelchairs as well.
I also remember during Shrub’s term that they were losing so many troops in the sandbox that IIRC Joint Base McChord tried to only hold one funeral per month for the losses because it was ‘too depressing’ until the Bushie twits were reminded forcefully that every service member was owed at least their own funeral.
Given how many Bushies were recycled into MAGA and how they pretend to be tough guys, I’m not surprised they don’t care.
One thing I would expect is that they were not captured by the Russians, because I would have seen something out of RT or its ilk by now about how these four went to join Putin’s war.
No media coverage here of the missing crew.
Today Hegseth has said that he is “thinking of them.”
As far as I can tell, not one of The Felon Guy’s appointees is qualified for the positions he’s appointed them to. Most of them should never have co e to his attention.
The institutional memory that comes with a decade or two of being steeped in what it means to have “been there and done that” is an amazing defense against ignorance, against failure, when it comes time to apply the emotional, cognitive, and procedural skills necessary to perform highly coordinated, high risk, tasks. Think neurosurgery. Think the bombing of a foreign adversary.
If the goal is destruction, they’re (alas) perfectly qualified
Mike Waltz is qualified.
But will probably be fired bc he had ties to a neocon journalist if right wingers manage to keep FL-6.
Of Hegseth, saith Wheeler:
“To be fair, he may simply not know better.”
I think that qualifies as “damning with faint scorn.”
It’s like we’re in a parody of reality. Some kind of mind fuck.
Filed under honesty / humility / integrity:
I notice that certain (of course anonymous) GOP lawmakers are riled up over JD Vance’s apparent challenging of Convict-1 / Krasnov’s ‘orders’. It points out that the entire GOP views the pronouncements of the Palace (through mouthpiece Miller) as gospel beyond any scrutiny or question.
Keep in mind that we have seen no actual evidence that Convict-1 / Krasnov ordered these strikes, no document, message, communication, etc. that is definitively approved only by C-1 / K. This leaves open the question of whether he actually did order the strikes or it was only Stephen Miller’s dream being fulfilled. I suspect the whole Signal discussion also implies that no planning meeting of the security team had occurred to hash out the contours and consequences of the decision to strike. Otherwise, why would Vance have doubts and to agree to go along with the rest of the team (nice leadership, JD) to whatever they decided? I also read elsewhere that Hegseth said there was a 24-hour decision window which has no documentation to support it was actually followed.
We should not be anywhere close to done with this, but AG Bondi and FBI Director Patel sure seem to be. I guess Patel still hasn’t figured out how to magically redact Convict-1 / Krasnov out of the Epstein files in a failure of wizardry. Or, Kash may be busy finding ways to throw NSA Waltz under the bus.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/jd-vances-role-signal-chat-angers-senior-republican-lawmakers-rcna198697
“I suspect the whole Signal discussion also implies that no planning meeting of the security team had occurred to hash out the contours and consequences of the decision to strike.”
The chat was notable for who, I believe, it excluded: the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff— the highest-ranking and most senior military officer in the United States Armed Forces and the principal military advisor to the president. If absent, then why?
There was a Principal’s Committee meeting. It’s what Waltz brought Miller onto interpret for everyone.
Whether it’s functional or not is another question.
Vance’s comments lead me to believe it wasn’t really decided at the principals’ meeting, but Stephen Miller said it was. If I were doing the FOIA, I’d like to see the authorization to strike document signed by Convict-1 / Krasnov. Nothing else would be valid unless expressly permitted by the local rules of engagement (and Centcom can cough that up too). One of the goals of the War Powers Act of 1964 was to ensure POTUS retained control of those decisions to avoid another Gulf of Tonkin fiasco.
A huge furor and concern over one chat conversation that we know about, only because of the careless admission to the group of a journalist, and the possible exposure of classified information only makes me wonder about how much unsecured information has been carelessly exposed in the last 3 months.
NINE WEEKS. It’s only been NINE WEEKS.
A huge furor and concern over one chat conversation that we know about, only because of the careless admission to the group of a journalist, and the possible exposure of classified information only makes me wonder about how much unsecured information has been carelessly exposed in the last 3 months. Is this the tip of the iceberg?
I think so, since there was no indication in the chat that this was an abnormal communication platform in any way. It also follows a long-standing GOP pattern of covering up inconvenient facts / data / evidence such as the 2004 ballots in OH that were ‘accidentally’ destroyed (ahem) to prevent recounts among many other examples.
Convict-1 / Krasnov was never a fan of records anyhow, he sees them as ways to leverage himself so as little as possible will be accessible. The problem for these knuckleheads is that the PRC, Russians, Saudis are all listening in and will hold those records.
Very likely; if not past, then future. Hegseth is a series of big fat security breaches itching to happen. As the pressure mounts, all the more likely.
Geez, it was positively cruel to the man, with his history, to put him anywhere near that kind of work-related pressure, both administrative and political. Just a hop and a skip away from eventual disaster. (And not for him alone either.)
I wonder how he’s going to release that stress, since both getting drunk and hitting on women are out.
Neither of those actions are out in the magaverse. It’s expected of maga alpha males, a feature not a bug.
Gacyclist, he’s already got a rep for that, and it’s not going to help him going forward.
I’ve actually wondered if the presence of his wife and brother are (partially) intended as defenses against backsliding. I’d have some small amount of sympathy for that on a purely human level, but someone who needs that kind of adult supervision has no business being SecDef. (Not that we didn’t already know that about Hegseth, on so many levels.)
Of course they do not have any integrity – that is literally how they were chosen for their positions. And it is also the reason why MAGA will continue to support them.
This is one hell of a good post.
Heh! SecDef Pete holds transgender troops to a higher standard than he holds himself.
I thought it was amusing that at 6:30 in the video a gentleman sitting behind Sen. Kaine was about to drink from his mug, but then hesitates as Sen. Kaine says the word, “drunk,” and puts the mug back down.
I found the Kaine comments to be infuriating. There was so much focus on things like Hegseth’s infidelity, cheating, and otherwise being a jerk. Being a jerk is, for the most part, perfectly legal. And there was too little focus on the fact that he was completely unqualified professionally. What did he know about national security issues, running an organization of that size, managing a budget of that size, etc, etc?
I’m sure someone could have gotten a moment where he did something like confuse Lagos and Laos.
Hegseth, Hegseth, reckless with death,
Has a wife (so did Macbeth)
If she’s now on a Signal cell
It’s two for one to raise pell-mell
Hegseth, Hegseth, reckless with death,
Has a wife (does she test his breath?)
If he put her on a Signal cell
What is next for show-and-tell?
Thought experiment:
What would happen if enlisted people and officers started bringing their spouses and siblings to work meetings?
All in the family with the Hegseth’s at the Department of Defense.
The family that defends together stays together.
Chris Geidner:
https://bsky.app/profile/chrisgeidner.bsky.social/post/3llpfrwcths25
March 31, 2025 at 6:28 PM
OT: Analysts at Cantor, formerly headed by Lutnick, call for Kennedy’s dismissal
“The Cantor analysts noted the fall in the stocks, but said their note had nothing to do with politics, stocks and biopharmaceutical sales, but with keeping lives out of jeopardy.”
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/analysts-cantor-formerly-headed-by-lutnick-call-kennedys-dismissal-2025-03-31/
Why didn’t you post this in the appropriate thread, the one about vaccines? -__-
I think you need to slow your roll, especially after your recent attempt to violate copyright.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us-embassies-globally-tell-suppliers-comply-with-trump-ban-diversity-policies-2025-03-31/
Suppliers are not employees. It’s not government’s job to tell them how to do business.
You mean they won’t make the same announcement in the US today or tomorrow for all businesses, state and local governments?