U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles attend U.S. President Donald Trump's meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and European leaders amid negotiations to end the Russian war in Ukraine, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 18, 2025. REUTERS/Alexander Drago
A Department of Defense official is calling for "severe punishment" for reporters who he said published sensitive "details" about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's security detail.
The Washington Post penned a report on Wednesday talking about the significant increase in security and protection being funded by taxpayers for Hegseth, his ex-wife, and the rest of his family. The report didn't give any specific information.
However, acting deputy press secretary Joel Valdez took to X to claim it put all of them at risk.
The Huffington Post's Arthur Delaney noted that the piece reported a broad range of how many total agents are on the security team and how much it costs.
"Call for 'severe punishment' from a government official in response to WP story on Pete Hegseth's 'sprawling, multimillion-dollar' security detail for himself and his former spouses."
"Four hundred, five hundred DOD agents on security details, up from 150 before," Delaney cited from the Post article.
The Post explained, "The agency tasked with protecting Defense Department leaders is under significant strain, and the secretary’s atypical needs are becoming untenable, officials say."
The "sensitive details" that Valdez cites include the sentences, "The sprawling, multimillion-dollar initiative has forced the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division, or CID, the agency that fields security for top Defense Department officials, to staff weeks-long assignments in each location and at times monitor residences belonging to the Hegseths’ former spouses, the officials said."
The only other identifying information is, "Historically, about 150 of the agency’s approximately 1,500 agents serve on VIP security details, according to people familiar with the matter, who said that when Hegseth took office, a call went out for many more. Now there are hundreds assigned to personal protective duty, these people said. One person characterized the figure as '400 and going up.' Another said it’s 'over 500.'"
There was no information about the exact number of agents, where those agents are located, how their security procedure works or the day-to-day activity of the team.
Valdez singled out the authors of the report for "putting their safety at risk."
He then demanded, "There should be severe punishment for what [they] are doing."
During Trump's first term in office, his Cabinet officials were exposed for excessive spending on private jet travel and other expenses.