Pentagon Quietly Put MAGA Influencers on Payroll

The Pentagon quietly hired conservative military veterans with large social media followings into civilian government roles without announcing it, the Washington Post reported late Sunday.

Two named in the report are Rob Maness, a retired Air Force colonel with more than 130,000 followers on X, and Kurt Schlichter, a retired Army colonel with more than 600,000. Sources told the Post both hold active government email addresses ending in ".civ" — the marker of a civilian employee — and are assigned to the office of Anthony Tata, the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness.

Neither man disclosed the government tie while posting content backing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the administration, the Post reported. The Pentagon declined to say what the two are doing or whether taxpayers are paying them.

What the Records Show

Sources told the Post the influencers are carried as "special government employees" or "highly qualified experts." A special government employee is capped by law at 130 days of work in any 365-day period; the highly qualified expert category can be part-time or full-time, with or without compensation. Schlichter appears in a database seen by the Post as an HQE.

The Pentagon did not disclose salaries or any other financial arrangements with the veterans, the Post reported.

Maness ran unsuccessfully for a U.S. Senate seat in Louisiana and chairs GatorPAC, and has written online in favor of removing "disloyal" employees at the Pentagon, according to Military.com. Schlichter writes for the conservative site Townhall and has called President Trump a "hero" over the war with Iran.

The Independent reported that while their status went undisclosed, the two posted in support of firing Hegseth's critics at the department, backed Trump's military actions in Venezuela, and defended Hegseth's spending on a luxury dinner.