So now we know why West Point dropped 'duty, honor, country' from its mission statement
Earlier this year, West Point dropped 'duty, honor, and country' from its mission statement, replacing it with 'the Army Values,' whatever the hell those were.
Well, now we know:
This is a pretty big scandal.
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) December 11, 2024
West Point lied and said Hegseth hadn’t even applied when a journo reached out asking about Hegseth’s acceptance.
Hegseth responded to the journo with evidence of his acceptance so they didn’t publish. They didn’t either publish that West Point… pic.twitter.com/dBpNoKAaE7
ProPublica, the media outlet that got lied to by the official government outlet, witheld publication after Hegseth issued this tweet to the public:
We understand that ProPublica (the Left Wing hack group) is planning to publish a knowingly false report that I was not accepted to West Point in 1999.
— Pete Hegseth (@PeteHegseth) December 11, 2024
Here’s my letter of acceptance signed by West Point Superintendent, Lieutenant General Daniel Christman, US Army. pic.twitter.com/UOhOVZSfhJ
Of course they couldn't publish what they had been planning to publish -- Hegseth just gave irrefutable proof that West Point, through its official spokesweasel, had given them bum information.
But rather than be outraged at West Point for lying to them on the taxpayer dime, saying they were as surprised as anyone that the West Point public relations office could no longer be believed, ProPublica turned its fire on Hegseth, as if in a snit about not getting the 'scoop' it thought it had on him as its story fell apart:
Hegseth has said that he got into West Point but didn’t attend.
— Jesse Eisinger (@eisingerj) December 11, 2024
We asked West Pt public affairs, which told us twice on the record that he hadn’t even applied there.
We reached out. Hegseth's spox gave us his acceptance letter.
We didn't publish a story.
That's journalism. https://t.co/TceZdglkmL
According to Mediate, which has the full sequence of tweets and backbitings wrote this:
Jesse Eisinger, a senior editor and reporter at ProPublica, hit back at President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Pentagon on Wednesday after Pete Hegseth attacked the news organization for inquiring about his acceptance to West Point.
Hegseth, a former Fox News morning show host and pro-MAGA culture warrior, wrote on X, “We understand that ProPublica (the Left Wing hack group) is planning to publish a knowingly false report that I was not accepted to West Point in 1999.”
“Here’s my letter of acceptance signed by West Point Superintendent, Lieutenant General Daniel Christman, US Army,” Hegseth added and included two images that showed both his letter of acceptance from 1999 and his offer of admission.
The fact that ProPublica showed no disgust at West Point at its lies, and failed to print that they had been lied to by an official agency on the government dime, wasting their time, rather suggests that they had been in cahoots with the liars or at least a little too cozy with them to want to write about the real scoop that they had got, which was that the official public relations office of West Point was not a reliable source.
That verifies Hegseth's secondary allegation in his public tweet that ProPublica had "knowingly" participated in the cavalcade of lies coming out of the place once known for "duty, honor, country."
And as Charlie Gasparino, an experienced newsman I remember from his days at The American Banker 25 years ago, noted, it's not normal:
Mike makes a great point; I've requested the academic records of dozens of people who were subjects of my reporting. It's pretty simple and Ive never had a single instance of the school getting it wrong. How could a place like @WestPoint_USMA not get this right re @PeteHegseth?… https://t.co/z6MmCobSPV
— Charles Gasparino (@CGasparino) December 12, 2024
As usual, J.D. Vance cut to the quick of what was going on:
You were misled by a bureaucrat. That's actually a story, just not the one you wanted to print.
— JD Vance (@JDVance) December 11, 2024
The effort to tank Hegseth's nomination is one of the most coordinated smear campaigns I've ever seen in DC. https://t.co/1vH2SrcOSb
Others noticed the strangeness of a news outlet missing its scoop, too:
West Point lied to you about the incoming SECDEF and you didn’t think it was worth a story? That’s not journalism. You were looking to run a partisan hit, and when it failed, you tried to slink away and pretend it never happened. https://t.co/KeGsZcxl4X
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) December 11, 2024
"Journalism" is reporting West Point's error.
— Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) December 11, 2024
We reached out-here is their official statement
West Point didn't properly search their records, which showed Hegseth was offered admission in 1999 and 2003.
Now the story is whether it was simple error or something more sinister https://t.co/WsB6EuYslH pic.twitter.com/F87OTjmwvE
A journalist would now focus on why the West Point Office of Public Affairs lied to them, as opposed to simply dropping the original story because it didn't pan out the way they wanted. https://t.co/ngslklag1K
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) December 11, 2024
The real question & story here is **why** West Point lied to you.
— Sean Parnell (@SeanParnellUSA) December 11, 2024
Because it seems the motivation was to hurt Pete’s chances at becoming SECDEF.
Which in turn could mean a military officer wanted to undermine a President-elect.
And this folks, is precisely why we need Pete. https://t.co/2KfBBPQNUk
Well, they weren't interested. They wanted to Get Hegseth and made-up stories from the West Point press office don't cut it when Hegseth can go directly to the public with the receipts. Had Hegseth not saved those documents, he would have stood accused as a liar, which is where the real harm comes in. Thank goodness he had the gumption to get out front and expose the dirty game being played by both ProPublica, and more outrageously, the West Point establishment.
And some noted the irony of the phony information:
I was just at West Point and saw this.. read the top: pic.twitter.com/D2vWXPRWAi
— Man with a Camera 📸 (@projectboy229) December 11, 2024
Seems that Army Value of not lying applies only to cadets, not staff, though given the recent cheating scandals, that's probably not true, either.
West Point has since apologized, but it needs to explain what it was doing. Congress has stepped in and looks interested in finding out:
Officials at the U.S. Military Academy should not be feeding lies to left-wing reporters about President Trump’s nominees.
— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) December 11, 2024
West Point needs to thoroughly investigate this egregiously bad judgement and potential violation of the Privacy Act immediately. pic.twitter.com/gQpFjLbLaS
BREAKING: Senator Tom Cotton demands an investigation into West Point, apparently lying to leftwing journalists to undermine Pete Hegseth.
— Futurist™ (@americasgreat) December 11, 2024
Theresa Brinkerhoff. the West Point public affairs officer seems to be the ones who didn't tell the truth about Hegseth. pic.twitter.com/U3K5MkOFgE
That will be the even bigger news once that group is exposed and hosed out. Maybe we can get some devotion to honor from these guys again.
As for ProPublica, don't count on it, just laugh at them for missing their biggest story as they postured hautily about "journalism."
Image: Screen shot from X video