'Pretty hardcore' cocaine accusation in Hegseth Pentagon report singled out on MSNBC

On Saturday morning, MSNBC host Katie Phang invited Guardian reporter Hugo Lowell on to discuss his new report on the turmoil at the Pentagon under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and quickly singled out a startling revelation of an accusation of cocaine use.

With Hegseth under the gun for what has been dubbed "Signalgate," new revelations that he included his wife, brother and lawyer in a separate Signal chat where he discussed war plan, and use of an unsecured internet commercial "dirty line" from his Pentagon office, Lowell reported that fighting among dismissed Hegseth aides has also gotten messy.

According to his report, the DOD has been "marked for weeks by ugly internal politics" with his now-ousted chief of staff Joe Kasper pointing the finger at the departed Dan Caldwell, deputy chief Darin Selnick and chief to the deputy defense secretary Colin Carroll, with them reciprocating.

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According to MSNBC host Phang, what she fund intriguing was a passage where Lowell wrote, "The tensions among the former aides have continued since their collective ouster. Carroll has considered filing a defamation suit against Kasper and started making calls on the Monday after he was fired, asking people whether Kasper had ever been seen doing cocaine in a previous job. Kasper has complained that some of the calls went to his wife and previous clients, asking rhetorically to associates how he would have been able to hold a security clearance and pass regular drug tests."

"Your piece that just came out this morning is fantastic, but there was something that stuck with me was pretty hardcore," Phang prompted her guest. "I mean, Hugo, this is the Department of Defense, this is national security, this is the welfare of not only our armed forces and the people that are sacrificing to be able to defend us, but it's our safety. And this is the type of insanity that's going on under Pete Hegseth's's tenure."

"It was Colin Carroll, the chief of staff of the deputy secretary, who in the wake of his firing, you know, he was basically bundled out of the Pentagon along with two other aides who were seen as antagonistic or at odds with the chief of staff at the Pentagon, Joe Kasper and what we have seen in the days since is this kind of continuation of that interpersonal conflict," Lowell responded.

"And so the Monday, after Colin Carrol was was fired –– he was fired on the Friday –– he was busy calling up people around Kasper's life, including his wife and his in-laws and, and kind of former clients trying to chase down a tip that Kasper may have, been using cocaine in a previous job. and he claimed it was because he was trying to do research for his defamation suit," he elaborated.

"Now, we should say, you know, Joe Kasper, the chief of staff who has since left that role in the wake of all of this as well, he has strenuously denied using any cocaine," the Guardian reporter cautioned "And when reached by phone yesterday, told us that, you know, it's so 'egregiously. stupid' that I'm, you know, getting mired into this stuff and how could I have held a security clearance for so long if I was actually doing drugs? But the wider point is correct."

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