The Pentagon has placed conservative veteran influencers in government jobs but will not say what those jobs are or whether taxpayers are paying for them. Some of the positions are civilian roles that could shape policy.
Records show retired Air Force Col. Rob Maness, who has more than 135,000 followers on X, and retired Army Col. Kurt Schlichter, who has nearly 620,000, had official civilian “.civ” email addresses last week and are assigned to the office of Anthony Tata, the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness.
Retired Army Col. Thomas Anderson, who writes as Cynical Publius and has more than 323,000 followers, showed up in the same kind of Pentagon roster earlier this year with a civilian email in Tata’s office. By late last week his name was no longer on that list. People familiar with the matter said the men were brought on as special government employees or “highly qualified experts.”
Special government employees are limited by law to 130 days of work in any 365-day stretch. It was not clear what they are paid, or if they are paid at all. None of the three mentioned the Pentagon jobs in the columns and posts they have written backing Hegseth.
Maness, Schlichter, and Anderson also visited the Army War College in May as part of Hegseth’s task force looking for “woke” ideology. Separately, influencer Jennica Pounds, who posts as DataRepublican, said she became a special government employee at the Pentagon in July after holding a credential in Hegseth’s new press corps.
