A new report claims that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth threatened to “polygraph” two top U.S. military officials.
ABC News reported that it confirmed a new Wall Street Journal report that claimed the secretary of defense issued a “polygraph” threat to two top U.S. military officials in at least two different meetings amid issues with Pentagon officials leaking information to the news media.
A source familiar with the meetings claimed that Hegseth’s threats came in response to the media reporting that the Pentagon was going to brief Tesla CEO and Department of Government Efficiency head Elon Musk on China, according to ABC News. During a meeting with Adm. Christopher Grady, who was serving as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, Hegseth allegedly shouted, “I’ll hook you up to a f-cking polygraph!”
According to ABC News, the anonymous source claimed that Hegseth later made a similar polygraph threat during a meeting with Joint Staff Director Lt. Gen. Doug Sims.
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Last month, The New York Times reported that Musk was going to be meeting with Trump administration officials at the Pentagon. The outlet reported that two U.S. officials claimed the meeting with Musk would include a briefing on the U.S. military’s potential war plans against China in the event of a conflict.
President Donald Trump and other administration officials repeatedly denied that the Pentagon was going to be giving Musk a briefing on the U.S. military’s potential war plans against China. At the time, Trump told reporters, “He’s there for DOGE, not there for China, and if you ever mentioned China, I think he’d walk out of the room.”
Hegseth also publicly addressed The New York Times report, warning that it was a “fake story” that was intended to “sort of undermine whatever relationship the Pentagon has with Elon Musk.”
“We welcomed him today to the Pentagon to talk about DOGE, to talk about efficiencies, to talk about innovations,” Hegseth added at the time. “It was a great, informal conversation. The rest of that reporting was fake. There was no war plans, there was no Chinese war plans. There was no secret plans.”
