ProPublica Tried — and Failed — to Fact Check Whether Pete Hegseth Was Actually Admitted to West Point
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ProPublica, a nonprofit news outlet that boasts digging deep into “important issues,” nearly published a false news story about Defense Secretary Nominee Pete Hegseth not being accepted to West Point but was deterred only after Hegseth sent them his letter of admission.
On Wednesday morning, Hegseth revealed on his X account that ProPublica was planning to publish a “knowingly false report” that he was not accepted to West Point in 1999, and posted his letter of admission.
The editor of ProPublica, Jesse Eisenger, in response to Hegseth’s post claimed that they were not going to publish a story.
But Eisenger revealed that ProPublica had already planned to write one before even reaching out to Hegseth, simply based on a response from West Point that later turned out to be wrong.
Eisinger in a thread on X began: “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.”
It was then that a West Point employee erroneously told the outlet: “According to the admissions office – Hegseth had not applied for admission to the U.S. Military Academy.”
Eisenger wrote, “Now we thought we had the makings of a significant story. But the first rule of good journalism is: No Surprises. You must give the subject of a potential story a fair chance to respond to all of the salient facts in the story.”
Only then did they contact Hegseth. Eisenger said they told Hegseth’s lawyer to “contact his client to make sure Hegseth understood what we were planning to write.”
And even after receiving Hegseth’s letter of admission, ProPublica still pursued the story, going “back to West Point.” At that point, West Point admitted it had made a mistake and said that Hegseth indeed was offered admission.
According to Hegseth’s lawyer, Tim Parlatore, ProPublica never told Hegseth or his team that they were not going to publish a story, and the last they were told was that they were going ahead with it.
Eisenger, in his sanctimonious thread on X, claimed the outlet was just doing journalism.
“This is how journalism is supposed to work. Hear something. Check something. Repeat steps 1 and 2 as many times as needed. The end,” he posted.
However, he did not explain why he contacted Hegseth only after they had already planned to write a story. And he did not address why they were looking into Hegseth’s claim he was admitted to West Point in the first place.
As for West Point’s error, Director of Communications Army Col. Terrence Kelley told Breitbart News in a statement:
An incorrect statement involving Mr. Hegseth’s admission to the United States Military Academy was released by an employee on December 10, 2024. Upon further review of an archived database, employees realized this statement was in error. Mr. Hegseth was offered acceptance to West Point as a prospective member of the class of 2003.
He added, “USMA takes this situation very seriously, and we apologize for this administrative error.”
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), a former Army reservist, sent a letter to the West Point superintendent saying he needed to investigate why an employee told ProPublica that he was not admitted in the first place.
Cotton posted on X:
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.
And Hegseth’s lawyer, Parlatore, on Tuesday also sent the superintendent a letter to complain about its employee, who he named as Ms. Theresa Brinkerhoff, a civilian public affairs officer there who had erroneously told ProPublica that Hegseth had not been admitted to West Point.
“The statement was communicated to a journalist who was trying to publish a derogatory article about Mr. Hegseth, claiming that he lied in interviews where he claimed that he had gotten admitted to West Point. In response, Ms. Brinkerhoff stated ‘Hegseth had not applied for admission to the U.S. Military Academy,'” Parlatore wrote.
“This action is problematic on a number of levels. Chief among those is that the information that Ms. Brinkerhoff provided to assist in this attempt to malign Mr. Hegseth is false. Not only did Mr. Hegseth apply, but he was accepted as a prospective member of the class of 2003,” he said, adding that Brinkerhoff’s actions raises “significant concerns under the Privacy Act of 1974” and “potentially involves illegal conduct aimed at harming a political nominee.”
As much more serious but anonymous and unverified allegations against Hegseth have failed to stick and stop his momentum towards getting confirmed by the Senate, the news media has turned to attacking Hegseth’s military record and credentials.
The Washington Post recently published a piece downplaying Hegseth’s two Bronze Stars.
Karoline Leavitt, a Trump transition team spokeswoman, called the Post’s reporting an attempt to “smear” Trump’s nominees and “minimize the honorable service of Pete Hegseth.”
“This,” she told the paper, “is another disgusting story.”
Follow Breitbart News’s Kristina Wong on ”X”, Truth Social, or on Facebook.
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