Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) is furious about new reporting that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sought out stocks related to defense just ahead of the Iran war, a red flag that he may have committed insider trading, and vowed on MS NOW's "Deadline: White House" that Democratic members of Congress will pursue an investigation.
The administration has already disputed the reporting, saying that Hegseth never reached out to BlackRock for financial information — but, anchor Nicolle Wallace noted, that's not even what the original story from the Financial Times alleged.
"Congressman, if the committee were to proceed and investigate this, the Defense Secretary's own statement is sort of a riddle wrapped in a lie," said Wallace. "The story doesn't allege that any that Pete Hegseth contacted BlackRock. The Financial Times is reporting that Pete Hegseth's broker at Morgan Stanley contacted BlackRock, and an internal alert system was set off by a, quote, 'multi-million dollar investment request for a product that wasn't even available outside of BlackRock.' It feels like something begging to be investigated. Is this on your radar?"
"Well, this is complete corruption," said Garcia. "And not only is it on our radar, in fact, today we are opening an investigation ... and both Morgan Stanley and BlackRock will be receiving letters from myself and the Oversight Committee today, asking a series of questions to preserve documents."
Additionally, he added, they contacted Hegseth, and "we also are expectinghim to answer our questions."
"Imean, the idea that ourSecretary of Defense or War, orwhatever he wants to callhimself, is trying to makemoney to enrich himself offplaying games with our militaryis pure corruption and insane," said Garcia. "First, he should never betrading stocks as it relates todefense in the first place. Andthe fact that his own broker atMorgan Stanley, which by theway, this has been. Now this isbeing claimed by multiplepeople. The allegation iscoming from multiple sourcesthat are being reported. Andit's also being reported thatthe folks at BlackRock werevery concerned about this andthe fact that the Secretary'sbroker at Morgan Stanley istrying to invest in war, wherewe all know very well that PeteHegseth has the power to deployour troops."
"I think this is some of the most serious reporting that we've seen out of this administration as it relates to the Pentagon," Garcia said. "Andwhat I told the team earliertoday, as we were discussingthis, is, look, we have a lotof big investigations right now,whether it's Jeffrey Epstein,whether it's Kristi Noem,what she did to DHS with Lewandowski, whether it's RFK Jr. at HHS. But this also has tobe a serious investigationbecause we're talking about warand peace and about launching aforeign war that could possiblyenrich the Secretary of Defense."