One set of documents is stashed in a gun safe in Northern Virginia. Another sits in a safe deposit box at a Washington, DC, bank. A third is tucked away somewhere on the West Coast.
All three hold evidence that fed-up Defense Department officials hope will force Pete Hegseth out after next week’s midterm elections.
Pentagon sources told the Daily Mail they and their colleagues have spent much of the last 22 months compiling emails, memos and meeting notes.
The files detail times the defense secretary and his inner circle allegedly ignored strategic and legal advice, berated the experts who gave it, withheld information from Congress and the public, and threatened the careers of subordinates who either challenged his decisions or struck him as too woke, fat, queer or disloyal.
They figure the paper trail, plus a list of potential witnesses from inside the department, will come in handy if Democrats retake the House in November and, as expected, open an impeachment investigation in 2027.
‘We’re ready with the receipts,’ said a longtime Army officer who keeps a Trapper Keeper, once his daughter’s high school binder, double-locked in his basement gun safe. Inside are documents that he believes could one day bring down his boss.
He is one of several Defense Department insiders who described coordinated plans to hand paper trails and personal accounts to lawmakers interested in investigating, and possibly impeaching, Hegseth.
All insisted on anonymity, fearing for their jobs, military pensions and ability to build a case from inside the Pentagon.
Pentagon insiders have spent months secretly compiling a trove of potentially damaging evidence against Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, which they hope could lead to his ouster after the midterm elections, the Daily Mail has learned
Hegseth is seen visiting the troops in the Middle East in May. Inside sources tell the Daily Mail they believe repeated leadership shake-ups have left troops uncertain about the future direction of the military (Source: SecWar/X account)
‘We’re sticking our necks out. You gotta protect us,’ one pleaded.
This comes as news broke Wednesday that Hegseth has fired the Pentagon’s top military planner, Army Lt Gen Brett Sylvia.
Formerly heading up strategy, plans and policy on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Sylvia was removed after he reportedly leaked classified information about the war in Iran as well as the war between Russia and Ukraine – and just as President Donald Trump considers renewed strikes on Iran following next week’s midterm elections.
Since early 2025, the Daily Mail has been in close contact with a core group of military and civilian Pentagon insiders who, along with others in the department, have tried in various ways to blow the whistle on Hegseth.
The former Fox & Friends host has rebranded the federal government’s biggest agency the ‘Department of War’ and, they say, runs it like a personal fiefdom.
Our sources first raised red flags about the outsized role of Hegseth’s wife, former Fox News producer Jennifer Hegseth.
After news broke that she was in encrypted Signal chats about sensitive details of a March 2025 US strike on Houthi rebels in Yemen, insiders revealed her Pentagon nickname: ‘Yoko Ono,’ a nod to her constant presence in her husband’s business meetings.
By spring 2025, the insiders were decrying Hegseth for issuing orders and setting policy without considering, or even hearing, input from intelligence, security, logistics and legal advisers.
Hegseth’s critics are banking on a potential Democratic takeover of the House to trigger impeachment proceedings, though some believe mounting political pressure could force President Trump to fire him
They described politicized decision-making, department-wide dysfunction, low morale and a climate of paranoia fed by what they call his obsession with rooting out dissent.
Several laid out their grievances in a 2025 letter that circulated among high- and mid-level brass and civilian workers, calling to ‘Let the American public know this guy has no clue what he’s doing,’ one of them told the Daily Mail.
Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell brushed it off as ‘palace intrigue’ and ‘sensationalized mainstream media gossip’ that Americans ‘don’t care about.’
‘They care about action,’ his statement read at the time.
The warnings grew more urgent as Hegseth kept firing top officials, including the Army secretary and chief of staff, the Joint Chiefs chairman, the Navy’s highest-ranking officer, the top commander of forces in Europe and Africa, the judge advocates general (JAGs) of three military branches and scores of civilian Pentagon staffers.
They ramped up when dozens of extrajudicial strikes on suspected drug traffickers in the Caribbean and West Pacific began last fall. And they grew louder still in February, when the Trump administration attacked Iran without a declaration of war or specific legal authorization.
Hegseth claimed an early victory over Iran last winter and has touted that the US achieved ‘every single objective.’
But our sources say he ignored, and even concealed, a string of uncomfortable truths about the war: The military wasn’t ready before the attack, US sites across the Middle East were badly damaged, and stockpiles of key munitions ran low.
Hegseth has already come under fire for allegedly trying to impose a narrow brand of Christian nationalism within the military
The apparent mockery of Hegseth also now extends to his wife Jennifer, the sources say. His spouse is said to have earned the nickname ‘Yoko’ – after Yoko Ono – for sitting in on high-level meetings and even a sensitive Signal chat about military operations, despite holding no formal Pentagon role
As recently as Friday, President Donald Trump threatened that the US ‘may do another little [Operation] Epic Fury’ against Iran soon.
All of our Pentagon insiders say Hegseth has been told again and again that continued war with Iran is unsustainable.
Some see his new ‘doomsday plan,’ ordering every major US military base to prepare to run for at least 90 days without outside electricity, fuel, water or supplies, as his way of tackling the problem without the awkwardness of urging the president to drop his war plans.
‘Pete’s lucky to be here and he knows it. He’s never gonna say no to Trump,’ one said.
Two sources said they’ve taken part, directly or indirectly, in briefing members of Congress and their staffers on Hegseth’s rule over the military.
The briefings have been decidedly low-tech and well away from Capitol Hill and the Pentagon, including, one source said, at a sandwich shop and a dog park.
Blowing the whistle on the boss is risky.
Two sources described an agreement that unofficial meetings with lawmakers and interviews with reporters be handled by officials nearing retirement, not those with careers still ahead.
Disgruntled military and civilian officials inside the Pentagon have purportedly stashed emails, memos, and meeting notes in secure locations hoping to hand the evidence to lawmakers
Members of the military listen as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth gives a State of the Force address at Marine Corps Base Quantico in September
‘If heads roll, it should be (us) who already raised our families and put our kids through college,’ one said.
Some lawmakers have tried to act.
Last December, Michigan Democratic Representative Shri Thanedar introduced two articles of impeachment.
The first focused on the Caribbean boat strikes, which some Pentagon insiders told us amounted to war crimes.
The second accused Hegseth of leaking classified war plans via Signal to people without security clearances: his wife in one group chat and The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, in another.
In April, Arizona Democrat Representative Yassamin Ansari introduced six articles. Among her allegations: waging an unauthorized war in Iran, targeting civilians at a school there and obstructing congressional oversight.
Both efforts stalled in Republican-led committees.
Last month, outgoing Republican Representative Thomas Massie went further, reading eight articles of impeachment on the House floor, including the allegations lodged by the two Democrats.
Republican congressman Thomas Massie has previously already pushed for Hegseth’s impeachment and plans to renew those efforts after the midterms
When he tried to force a vote, House Speaker Mike Johnson sent lawmakers home early, until after the midterms. The Kentucky Republican plans to try again the week of November 9.
A growing group of Republicans in both chambers are said to be losing confidence in Hegseth, but Massie’s resolution could still struggle to pass in a GOP-controlled House.
‘Trump should fire Hegseth to avoid Hegseth’s impeachment,’ Massie posted on X on October 15, the same day Trump overrode his war chief’s plan to livestream the firing-squad execution of the man convicted of killing 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009. ‘It’s the honorable thing to do.’
As a rule, military and civilian Defense Department employees stay politically neutral on the job.
But a longtime officer who says he ignored politics throughout a 30-plus-year career could no longer do so after Trump appointed Hegseth.
‘Democratic control can’t come soon enough,’ said the registered Republican, who hopes Democrats soon have the votes and subpoena power to open formal investigations.
House Democrats aren’t hiding their plans to drive Hegseth out. Candidates on the trail are blaming him for skyrocketing gas prices and an Iran war with no end in sight.
Rep Jared Huffman of California has called the secretary an ‘unhinged fanatic’ whose reign needs to end as soon as possible.
Rep Suhas Subramanyam of Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the oversight subcommittee on military and foreign affairs, has voiced support for investigating Hegseth in the new Congress.
Sources previously told the Daily Mail that Hegseth, pictured on September 2, has been running his Department of War like a personal fiefdom
And Rep Melanie Stansbury, a New Mexico Democrat, has said impeaching Hegseth should be among House Democrats’ top three priorities.
‘One of the first things we’re going to do in the majority, we’re going to run Pete Hegseth out of town,’ House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, expected to become Speaker in January, told voters in Pennsylvania earlier this month.
A House Armed Services Committee staffer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he’s in close contact with several Pentagon whistleblowers and knows about their efforts to supply evidence for a possible impeachment.
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The House has impeached a war chief only once: in 1876, when Secretary of War William Belknap handed his resignation to President Ulysses Grant minutes before the vote. The Senate later acquitted him.
Even if Democrats have the simple majority to impeach Hegseth next term, the case would go to a Senate trial, where conviction takes a two-thirds supermajority.
‘It’s a longshot,’ the staffer acknowledged.
Short of a conviction, the insiders say they’d be just as pleased with other routes to Hegseth’s toppling.
One would be Trump firing him, as he did Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem less than two months after impeachment articles were introduced against her. The other would be Hegseth resigning under sustained political pressure.
Hegseth has been rumored to be eyeing a presidential bid since a political appearance in Iowa in August, a report he has called ‘100% false.’
And in recent weeks he reportedly has been angling for Sen. Marsha Blackburn to appoint him to her Senate seat if she wins the Tennessee governor’s race in November, as expected. He lived briefly in the state before joining the cabinet.
A Pentagon insider who was once hopeful about the secretary lamented that Hegseth has ‘had a target on his back’ since his early-2025 confirmation process, when lawmakers from both parties grilled him about accusations of excessive drinking and a 2017 sex-assault allegation. He denied both.
He squeaked through by the narrowest possible margin, a 50-50 vote broken by Vice President JD Vance.
‘They left… no room for the possibility that he changed his ways or that service members might embrace him,’ that source said of Hegseth’s critics.
He pointed to longtime snipes at the secretary’s outspoken anti-wokeness and Christian nationalism, views he noted are popular with much of the rank and file.
He called other criticisms, such as the makeup studio Hegseth installed inside the Pentagon, his staged weightlifting photo ops with troops, and his new grooming and shaving policy and testosterone testing for service members, ‘petty distractions, but not impeachable offenses’.
That insider wishes the criticism would focus less on culture-war issues and more on what he sees as war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Caribbean and Iran.
‘Let’s sweat the big stuff, not the small stuff,’ he said Friday.
Meanwhile, Barack Obama launched some of those smaller criticisms Saturday.
‘You’ve got the defense secretary… he’s very focused on important matters like the jawlines and testosterone levels of our troops,’ the former president told a campaign rally crowd in Ohio.
‘How much time do you think this defense secretary spends looking at himself in the mirror in the morning?’
Responding to the Daily Mail’s request for comment on this story, Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell said: ‘At the War Department, we are solely focused on Peace Through Strength and ensuring our warfighters have everything they need to be successful. We are proud to serve our warriors’
