A government oversight agency has opted against opening an investigation into a decorated Marine Corps colonel assigned to an elite advisory role at the Pentagon, who was the subject of a complaint for appearing on a podcast that advocated for his boss’ execution.
The Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General agreed with a recommendation that a complaint against Col. Thomas M. Siverts does not warrant investigation, and closed the case. The decision was outlined in an October 29 letter to the complainant, who had alerted Siverts' superiors confidentially.
Siverts, who previously commanded the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit at Camp Pendleton and led deployments to East Asia, is currently assigned to the Joint Staff at the Pentagon. The Joint Staff supports General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is the highest-ranking military officer and principal military advisor to the secretary of defense, president and National Security Council.
In an episode of “The Berm Pit” podcast posted in late 2024, Scott Siverts, the colonel’s younger brother, and co-host Matt Wakulik discussed how Pete Hegseth, who was then President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Defense, should be rated.
“Why don’t we grade them on a scale of how many bullets I put in their head,” Wakulik suggested, as previously reported by Raw Story.
“Six bullets,” Wakulik went on to say about Hegseth, as Scott Siverts looked on with an air of amusement. “I’d have to put another one in there after I emptied the whole chamber — or the whole cylinder.”
Scott Siverts previously told Raw Story that when the podcast faced a public backlash over its extremist content earlier this year, his brother told him to leave the episode with his interview online.
“I like the episode,” Col. Thomas Siverts said, according to his brother. “If they come after me at some point, I don’t care. It’s free speech.”
The complainant, whom Raw Story has agreed to grant anonymity due to fear of retaliation, wrote in an email protesting the decision that Col. Siverts had “had ample time — over a year and a half — to denounce this extremist platform, request his episode’s removal, and make clear that he does not endorse or tolerate its content.” Instead, the complainant said, Col. Siverts “doubled down” by telling his brother to keep the episode online.
“To every Republican and veteran I’ve spoken with, it looks like complicity,” the complainant said. “Colonel Siverts, a man with top-secret clearance, continues to work in the same building as Secretary Hegseth — the man his brother once ‘rated’ with six bullets to the head on-air.”
Ian O’Dett, the whistleblower reprisal investigator for the Inspector General of the Marine Corps, which recommended dropping the case, referred questions about the matter to the Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General. That office did not respond to a request for comment about the decision to close the case.
A public affairs officer for the Joint Staff, where Col. Siverts is assigned, declined to comment for this story, and phone calls and emails to Col. Siverts went unreturned.
Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson declined to comment for this story.
During his Senate confirmation hearing in January, Hegseth vowed to discontinue Biden-era efforts to root out extremism from the military.
“Things like focusing on extremism… have created a climate inside our ranks that feels political when it hasn’t ever been political,” Hegseth said. “Those are the types of things that are going to change.”
The episode featuring Col. Siverts, which was recorded in March 2023, does not include any political commentary, but rather focuses on Col. Siverts’ experience in the Marine Corps. Scott Siverts also served in the Marine Corps, and the podcast’s name references the earthen mounds designed to catch bullet casings at firing ranges used by Marines for training purposes.
The podcast’s name and hypermasculine vibe appear designed to appeal to active-duty Marines and veterans. And although the podcast is produced in Pittsburgh, its X account currently lists its location as Camp Pendleton — the largest Marine Corps base on the West Coast.
Scott Siverts filed incorporation papers for the Berm Pit LLC with the Pennsylvania Department of State in February 2023, a month before recording the episode with his brother. In those early days, the podcast primarily featured interviews with mixed-martial arts fighters and other sports figures.
But an episode that ran a couple months before Col. Siverts’ appearance entitled “Militia Man” featured Wakulik, who would go on to become the co-host, discussing his unsuccessful run for Allegheny County sheriff. Wakulik’s involvement with a militia group that uses a symbol associated with white supremacy had made him a lightning rod for controversy during the campaign.
With Wakulik’s participation in the podcast, the content became increasingly political and extreme, including episodes criticizing the United States’ involvement in World War II against the Axis powers and questioning the Holocaust, promoting an antisemitic conspiracy theory about Jews and the Sept. 11 attacks, discussing race war, and endorsing the murder of government officials.
Following a successful deplatforming campaign in the spring of 2025 and Wakulik’s declining health as a result of cancer, the co-hosts posted their last podcast in June.
But only days after the Inspector General’s decision clearing Col. Siverts of wrongdoing, Wakulik announced on X on Nov. 1 that the podcast will relaunch in three months, while appealing to supporters to buy “BermPit” branded apparel to help pay for a new studio.
While promoting its return, the podcast hasn’t shrunk from its co-hosts’ most extreme positions.
On Sunday, the account posted a video of Wakulik criticizing the U.S. military while wearing a shirt reading, “Winston Churchill was a piece of s---” — a jab at the wartime leader of Great Britain, the United States’ primary ally against Nazi Germany during World War II.
“What the f--- has our military done for constitutional rights defending freedom in our own f---ing country?” Wakulik rails in the video. “Have we gained more freedom post-Civil War, post-World War I, post-World War II? Or have we lost more rights, more freedom, our currency devalued to a point of worthlessness with the inflation rate through the f---ing roof.”
On his own X account, Wakulik recently called on his followers to “train for ZOG abolishment” — an acronym for “Zionist occupied government” that promotes a conspiracy theory falsely claiming that Jews control the U.S. and other Western democracies. In another post this past week, he urged supporters to “start discussing getting rid of our enemies — defeating them and removing them from our country,” and to “start discussing using self-defense against them when they try to kill us, imprison us or steal our property.”
Along the same lines, Wakulik criticized white supremacists who complain about Jews, but refuse to take action out of fear of having “a ‘target on your back’ from ZOG.”
Another X user responded by mentioning a tactic for starting forest fires with “ping pong balls filled with a couple substances then dropped from helicopters.
“What were the substances??” Wakulik replied. “Asking for a friend!!!”
