The Plot To Militarize America

A memo from one of the Hegseth brothers raises alarms over a permanent troop presence on U.S. soil

Phil Hegseth (credit: dhs.gov) and Pete Hegseth (credit: defense.gov)

There’s a strange hallmark of this chaotic era. When the fascists plot to overthrow the government, or to turn our Republic into a military police state, they actually take the time to write out their plans.

Enter the smoking memo.

John Eastman infamously did this in a two-page, six-bullet point coup plot proposing to thwart Congress’s certification of the 2020 election on January 6. That memo and surrounding evidence led to multiple indictments for Eastman and a recommendation that he be stripped of his bar license.

Now, another once-secret memo has emerged, finding its way into the hands of reporters at The New Republic. This leak implies someone on the inside isn’t very happy with what they are seeing. Over the weekend, that outlet published an eye-popping summary by reporter Greg Sargent of what the plotters are up to this time.

At its heart is a call for massive deployment of U.S. military troops alongside DHS enforcement officers, not just in Los Angeles but across the country.

There are several important things to know about this memo, including

• who wrote it and from what department;

• how it rings a particularly disturbing historical bell;

• the way the plotters are plainly trying to cover their tracks;

• what the disturbing details are to involve the U.S. military; and

• how they intend to justify a major troop presence by riling up the country.

Some of their ideas are not new. But this is the first we’re seeing them formalized in a written memo. And that means this is no time to ignore the danger or look away. The plan is already set out in writing and in motion, and we need to be ready.

Hegseth wrote it

The memo’s author is not the Hegseth you might assume. Many are surprised to learn that Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense with a reported penchant for alcohol abuse, sexual assault, and disclosure of classified military secrets on insecure channels, has a younger brother in government too. His name is Philip Hegseth, and he happens to be a senior advisor to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

Phil Hegseth is also the Department of Homeland Security liaison officer to the Defense Department, which of course is run by his older brother Pete. There has been significant media speculation about what role the younger Hegseth actually plays in the Trump regime, but the fact that he is the memo’s author answers some of that.

While it’s common for departments to have liaisons—for example, each military branch has a congressional liaison, and the Pentagon and State Departments have intra-agency liaisons—it is pretty uncommon for family members of cabinet officials to hold such positions. That’s because the chance for at least the appearance of a conflict of interest runs high.

Phil Hegseth does not have the kind of resume, for example, that screams experience in this field. As the Associated Press reported, the younger brother’s experience appears limited to founding a podcast production company and working on social media and podcasts at The Hudson Institute, a conservative Washington, D.C. think tank.

Where Phil Hegseth does have experience is working alongside his brother—and apparently lining his pockets with favorable contract deals that get steered his way. When Pete Hegseth was the CEO of Concerned Veterans for America, a nonprofit that faced financial difficulty during his troubled tenure, the elder Hegseth “paid his brother $108,000 to do media relations for the organization, according to federal tax records,” according to the same AP report.

The fact that the memo was authored by one Hegseth brother for the other’s consideration raises serious questions. Not the least of these is whether there is active collusion between the Hegseth brothers to execute on what the memo recommends. Specifically, we should question whether the ideas in the memo originated from within DHS or whether the Secretary of Defense himself is in any way guiding its language or recommendations.

Echoes of a “Wannsee Conference” on July 21

The New Republic reports that the memo

outlines the itinerary for a July 21 meeting between senior DHS and Pentagon officials, with the goal of better coordinating the agencies’ activities in “defense of the homeland.” It details goals that Philip Hegseth hopes to accomplish in the meeting and outlines points he wants DHS officials to impress on Pentagon attendees.

It isn’t clear from the reporting whether this July 21 meeting actually took place as scheduled. But if it did, it is highly worrisome. And it immediately recalled for some observers the Wannsee Conference of 1942 in Nazi Germany.

Wannsee was a meeting between senior Nazi government officials and high-ranking SS leaders, held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee in January of that year. Its purpose was to ensure the administrative leaders’ cooperation with the SS plans in the implementation of their total control of the country, including the “Final Solution” leading to the Holocaust death camps.

The DHS/Pentagon July 21 meeting, if it in fact occurred, brought together internal U.S. security officials and top-level military ones in a manner that unacceptably blurred the lines between internal security and our armed forces. The U.S. military, under the Posse Comitatus Act, is not supposed to involve itself in domestic police work except under extraordinary circumstances.

A meeting between high level officials from DHS and the military to press and plan for such direct involvement is a dizzying step toward a permanent police state in the U.S. And just look at the proposed attendees of this meeting: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth; the new Trump-friendly Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dan Caine; USNORTHCOM Commander Gregory Guillot; Phil Hegseth from the Department of Homeland Security; and acting ICE commissioner Todd Lyons.

Keeping it under wraps

Further, and rather suspiciously, the memo advises that the planners intend to keep the paper trail to a minimum: “Due to the sensitive nature of the meeting, minimal written policy or background information can be provided in this briefing memo,” Phil Hegseth states.

Carrie Lee, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund, believes this indicates that “they understand that actions they’re taking are skirting the line.”

It also likely means that the leak of the memo itself was very much unintended and potentially highly embarrassing. And if there’s anything that will get Pete Hegseth steamed, it is a leak of internal communications to the press. Indeed, he was recently reprimanded for going too far, including ordering polygraph tests for senior Pentagon officials as part of a paranoid effort to stop Department leaks to the press.

The gist of the proposal

The primary goal of the July 21 meeting, according to the memo, was to discuss “new ideas for how the two departments can better plan for national security and illegal immigration.” It reads,

The U.S. military leadership (the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and NORTHCOM) need to feel – for the first time – the urgency of the homeland defense mission. They need to understand the threat, what’s at stake, and the political importance the administration has placed on this issue.

By “homeland defense mission,” Phil Hegseth means the supposed “invasion” of the United States by immigrants and the plans for mass deportation.

This “invasion” of course isn’t actually happening, except in the propaganda from the White House and the fever dreams of the far right. Nevertheless, it’s something DHS very much wants the Pentagon to prioritize.

The New Republic spoke with experts, and they are concerned. The memo shows DHS, perhaps with the assistance and knowledge of the Defense Secretary, may be actively pressuring top Defense officials to get more involved domestically. To this end, the memo specifically says that DHS is seeking an “agreement” in which the Pentagon will agree to “detail personnel within ICE and CBP,” seeking an active and unprecedented partnership between the two agencies. (This agreement, or any drafts of it, seems like a good candidate for a FOIA request.)

Such an arrangement would mean deploying military personnel, in peacetime, within domestic security forces tasked with immigration and border control. This would be both unprecedented and a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.

“The memo is alarming, because it speaks to the intent to use the military within the United States at a level not seen since Japanese internment,” remarked Lee of the German Marshall Fund. “The military is the most powerful, coercive tool our country has. We don’t want the military doing law enforcement. It absolutely undermines the rule of law.”

The plan apparently may go far beyond the Hegseth brothers, with its goals possibly originating from the very top. As Sargent noted, the memo itself says that aligning DHS and the Pentagon “is a priority of POTUS”—meaning Trump.

Bogus justification for a police state

To justify a permanent military presence within DHS law enforcement, including ICE, you would need to create a permanent reason to maintain a police state.

So how do you go about persuading Pentagon officials that U.S. troops should be deployed on U.S. soil in this way? Make it about terrorism, of course. Per the New Republic story,

The memo details talking points for DHS officials to use to persuade these Pentagon officials to get more involved in domestic enforcement. It references attacks on DHS officers and Central and South American cartels and gangs, noting that they’ve been designated terrorist organizations.

“That puts this threat on the same plain [sic] as having Al Qaeda or ISIS cells and fighters operating freely inside America,” the memo says.

This has observers and experts particularly concerned. The memo proposes that the military equate a low-level threat like transnational criminal organizations with a terrorist organization like Al Qaeda, which has actually targeted the U.S. people and wants to topple our government. To Lindsay Cohn, an associate professor at the U.S. Naval War College, this reference to Al Qaeda “is a clear attempt to use excessive force for a purpose normally handled by civil authorities.”

For this expansion of the military’s role, Phil Hegseth views the recent deployment of the U.S. National Guard and Marines in Los Angeles as a test run. Writes the younger Hegseth,

It hasn’t been perfect, and we’re still working through best practices together, but I think it’s a good indicator of the type of operations (and resistance) we’re going to be working through for years to come.

Years to come? Based on what national security emergency?

Cohn notes that the memo is “alarming” because it puts “responses to constitutionally protected protest in the same basket as counterterrorism and countering transnational criminal organizations.” There are some very limited yet legal ways for the military to support civilian police authorities, but those are normally a last resort and aren’t open-ended.

“This memo is talking about turning internal homeland security into a regular Defense Department activity, which it is not.”

“This is not normal,” Cohn warns.