QAA Podcast - The Pentagon’s Secret Posters feat. Will Sommer (E388)

Episode Date: September 2, 2026

This past week prominent right wing twitter poster, Jennica Pounds (DataRepublican), got paranoid after being handed documents by the State Department, leading to the revelation that the Pentagon is employing conservative influencers as “special government employees.” Travis details Pounds’ history and the events that led up to her legal illiteracy failure. Later we welcome back Will Sommer for his 10th appearance on the pod to discuss his reporting on the matter and what we know about these special government employee influencers and the role they may be playing in the Pentagon. Will Sommer on Twitter https://x.com/willsommer?lang=en Pete Hegseth Is Building a Pentagon Troll Army https://www.thebulwark.com/p/pete-hegseth-is-building-a-pentagon-troll-army-influencers-maga Pentagon Secretly Installs Military Influencers in Civilian Roles https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/08/30/pentagon-secretly-installs-military-influencers-civilian-roles/ Subscribe for $5 a month to get all the premium episodes: www.patreon.com/qaa Produced by Liv Agar & Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (instagram.com/theyylivve / sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (pedrocorrea.com) qaapodcast.com QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.

You're hearing this, well done. You found a way to connect to the internet. Welcome to the QAA podcast, episode 388. The Pentagon Secret Posters featuring Will Somer. Hell yes. As always, we are your host, Jake Rockatansky, Julian Field, and Travis View. Now, if you've used social media for long enough, you've encountered the concept of Fed posting. Usually begins when some anonymous poster starts suggesting to do something dangerous or illegal, or, you know,

He does something else kind of inflammatory. And then the other Anans accused that poster being a federal agent trying to entrap others. Now, it's not always crazy to be suspicious of potential federal agents adopting anonymous personas. Yeah, just a couple of episodes ago. We talked about like one instance in which Homeland Security investigations, an agent with them, attempted to infiltrate groups in Minnesota using the signal name peanut butter jelly. But most of the time, I find the way that people casually accuse each other to be feds online, to be unserious fun at best and paranoid at worst. However, recent news has somewhat vindicated

people who spend too much time online and suffer from schizophrenic tendencies, you know, the Terry Davises of the world. Maybe there really are secret feds everywhere on social media. Always were, bro. Just this past week, it was revealed that the Pentagon is literally employing some prominent right-wing posters on Twitter. And further, this was a secret that might have remained a secret, were it not for the fact that one of them got paranoid and accused a State Department undersecretary of trying to entrap her with some sort of criminal sting. This is such a good story, by the way. I love this story.

It's delightful. You know, how it's out there, you know, the paranoia is their undoing. Now, there are at least four conservative commentators who are employed by the Pentagon as special government employees. This program was uncovered through investigation by our guest today, Will Somer, an investigation by the Washington Post, which cited Summers' newsletter. But there are many unanswered questions about what exactly is going on here? For example, to what extent was the Pentagon merely buying these commentators' supposed policy

expertise, and to what extent were they purchasing the reach and credibility of these ostensibly independent voices? In other words, are these commentators government advisors who also happen to post to a large audience, or were they part of an undisclosed Pentagon-directed domestic influence operation? The latter? Brooklyn Dad, not so defiant. Yeah. I mean, it's funny.

I was like during the Biden administration, it was like, you know, a little, little suspicious that like a lot of these commentators were given, like, special access to the White House and, like, given nice treatment. And they'd given scoops and stuff inside. But this is, this is worse because this is like literally, the fucking Pentagon paying posters. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So let's start with a blowup that led to this revelation. So the first uncovered secret Pentagon employee was Jenica Pounds, better known as Dada Republican. Jake's face when that name hit.

I was waiting for it. Genica Pounds, zero chance that's not a porn star. Come on. Now, uh, data Republican. She has over 950,000 followers on Twitter. Sheesh. I know. It's crazy.

I think she might deserve her own episode one day. But until then, let me just sort of. like go over her rise to fame. So Jessica Pound started her career as a genuinely accomplished software engineer. She is deaf and nonverbal and earned a graduate degree in computer science. She used her expertise to improve software accessibility. While she worked as the director of software engineering at Snap in 2020, she built a prototype that translated finger spelling into speech,

which led to a funded team and Snapchat's ASL learning lenses. Okay, man. Bless you, dude. Yeah, I mean, is this essence? sounds like a good program. Improving software accessibility? Sounds like, I don't know. I think she should have stuck with that kind of work. Now, she made a Twitter account in 2020 where she promoted election maps and dashboards. And this is where she got like, you know, into like political stuff. Oh boy. But she remained obscure until 2024 when she earned reputation within a small

right wing online community as a quant account, like a political quant. A quant? Yeah, they're stats and Yeah, come on. He haven't seen the big short. Numbers. Oh, oh, okay, okay. Yeah, so, yeah, a number specialist. Jennifer Pounds really rose to fame, thanks to an endorsement of Elon Musk and through his fraudulent government efficiency program, Doge. So after the creation of Doge, she redirected her technical work towards stuff like IRS nonprofit filings, federal grants, and NGO officers.

At the height of Doge, she would regularly find an organization in the public data. that she believed to be suspicious or wasteful, and then Musk amplified that to, like, millions of followers. Rolling Stone calculated that Musk quoted or responded to data Republican at least 24 times in roughly three weeks. Now, she wasn't a Doge employee, but she said that she communicated with members of its team. So this is, I guess, part of why Elon Musk bought Twitter.

It's like, you know, he can really amplify any sort of voices or, like, influencers. He really wants to get a larger audience. Data Republican is in direct contact with Big Balls or whatever his name was. Was it Big Balls? It was Big Balls. Yeah, that was, yeah. Okay, great.

It was so stupid when I said it that I, for a second, thought maybe I'm getting it wrong. During this whole time, she was anonymous. But in February of 2025, the deaf blogger Ricky Taylor publicly named Jenica Pounce as the person behind Data Republican. In May of 2025, the New York Post called her, Elon Musk's Doge Secret Weapon. Pounds reportedly went through vetting for a federal appointment in 2025, but withdrew after learning that the position would restrict her posting. I guess this is not a problem for whatever position or responsibility she has with the Pentagon now.

Once established, and her following went from like 10,000 people to like, you know, it was like 400, 600,000 people during this time. Pounds expanded her efforts far beyond stuff like grant auditing. Her output started to encompass trying to find the deep state, government censorship, NGOs supposedly financing unrest, foreign influence, democratic politicians, anti-Trump Republicans, Candace Owens, and networks of socialist and anti-fascists. She's a big, you know, Soros is funding everything kind of person. One of her newest projects is the DSA Explorer, which connects together named Americans and organizations with the Democratic Socialists of America and a broader anti-imperialist

solidarity network, implying it's all a vast conspiracy. Oh, so she's like pure evil doing like McCarthy the app. Yes, yeah, the real McCarthyist red string nonsense. In April of 2026, Pounds received a credential in Pete Hegsett's replacement Pentagon press corps, which was created after conventional news organizations rejected the department's restrictive new rules. There are lots of people who, the Pentagon created a list of restrictions and sort of like conditions for people involved in their press corps. and every respectable news organization couldn't agree to that. And so they started replacing the Pentagon's press corps with a lot more partisan people.

Now, her credential expired in June. And in July, she quietly became a Pentagon special government employee. Now, it's since been revealed that this is the case, but the Pentagon still has not disclosed her duties or compensation. All right. So, yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. That's so funny.

the Pentagon employee making a DSA explorer. We're doing great, America, we're doing great. Yeah. The fact that she's a Pentagon employee might have been a secret still to this day, but this fact burst out into the open after a series of events that began with her accusing State Department

Undersecretary Sarah B. Rogers of trying to entrap her. It appears as though Rogers tried to give Jenneka Pounds documents related to the former Global Engagement Center, this government program, and encourage Pounds to publish it as an exclusive scoop. So doing her a favor. Pounds noticed markings on the document saying not for public release

and incorrectly assumed that she would be prosecuted if she published them. Now, not for public release. It's just an administrative handling note. It's not like a confidential or secret classification. Jenica Pounds brought down by her own stupidity. I mean, this is what they get for like. Yeah, if we're hiring these bizarre, paranoid conspiracies, what the fuck you think was going to happen? Mm-hmm.

In her panic, Pounds posted this, and they now deleted tweet. It's not okay when the deep state sets you up to commit a crime. I have never been more angry in my life. It's not okay. It's not okay. That's such, that's like she's blowing her top. Like for this type of person, when they say, it's not okay, like they are losing their minds. they are rolling around on the floor gnashing their teeth.

It's not okay. Sometimes it is okay, but this, the deep state setting me up? Not. To commit a crime? Not okay. Not cool, dude. The Pentagon that pays me sending me document to put out on my fake little channel, and then I get too paranoid and I'm stupid, not okay.

I walked in with good faith, ready to collaborate on Cuba. Got shoved a bunch of hard copy documents to quote unquote leak, didn't check them before accepting, gave a non-committal answer. Can we stop for a second and just talk about how she's saying it's like a collab, basically, this millennial-brained idiot, ready to collaborate on Cuba. Bro, you're doing a sci-op. Have a fucking half a fucking ounce of brain. Like, what are you doing?

You're not having a collab with the Pentagon on Cuba. Yeah, it's not like they're the gap. Yeah, that's right. I was ready to sign on to this brand partnership on this propaganda campaign. You're literally doing a sigh off. Also, she's writing it in that, like, that, like, Instagram, like, influencer way where everything is two lines with a space between. Everybody writes like this on social media.

I don't know who told them to do this, but it's so obnoxious. I love that they probably were like, listen, we need to, would you be down to, you know, like put out some stuff, like wink, wink. And she just, like, doesn't understand what the wink, wink means. So she outed herself because they didn't give her enough information about what she's really doing. And so she never really understood just, she's too stupid to understand how useful, but also, like, how involved she is in something like a sci-up. Well, it makes sense that the Pentagon wants to hire somebody that doesn't know how to write anything other than a fragment sentence. Look at this.

Got shoved a bunch of heart. Didn't check them. I didn't check them before. I gave them a non-committal answer. Okay. So we have an English teacher here taking over. I was with my parents this weekend. Yeah.

And then she goes on to say, yep, markings that would have got. me in big, big trouble. The markings weren't crossed out. They weren't crossed out. You could have crossed them out yourself. Does that invalidate them? Who are they going to prove who crossed them out? Excuse me, sir. There's no red marker all over my golden rod. It says confidential, but you forgot to cross it out, sir. I can't do that myself. Uh, excuse me, there's no, like, blocked out, um, redactions here. You know, I love that, like, she, like, made this, like, huge following, nearly a million followers, supposedly, look, uncovering government secrets, but she doesn't understand, like, the basic sort of, like, components of, like, classified markings, how all that works. No, because what she's doing is something way different, which is lying about Cuba, so we can continue to try to fucking invade the small island while we starve them to death.

Yeah, or convince, you know, your neighbor that Antifa is some kind of terrorist organization, or worse, that the DSA is some kind of terrorist organization. I have collabed with these people on Antifa and the DSA, and now I'm ready to collaborate on Cuba, but look what happens. She keeps going. The markings weren't crossed out. I consulted people, and if this were a sanctioned leak, they would have just sent over email. They tried to entrap me. The actual documents were nothing burgers that did not benefit them at all to release in public. And just so there's no doubt, I've screenshot and everything. You know who's getting fired is the Pentagon handler. Definitely, 100%. The Pentagon handler is is being told you fucking moral.

Like, why is she doing this? He's like, I don't know. We just gave her the, there's nothing. We weren't trying to, no. Usually she just posts exactly what we send her. In this case, it was a little more important, so I printed it up. We're sorry. She's making all this up.

Yeah, I mean, she has the endorsement of Elon Musk. Who could have known that she was a moron? Genica Pounds, still trying to get over that. Then Pounds posted her exchange, via text with Undersecretary Rogers. So this is what Pound said after receiving these documents. Just to be clear, you want me to leak the material you gave me unredacted. Happy to help your efforts, exclamation point.

It already contains all necessary redactions. If you'd rather report on already open source stuff, that's fine too. But I wanted to give you the option of breaking the story as a sort of gift. It's sort of a gift. Sort of a gift. They talk like they do in the movies. That's funny, huh? I didn't know that.

Breaking in quotation marks, of course. That's so funny. So, Jennifer Pounds ended the post by saying this. No, it did not fall for your trap. You tried to get me to commit a crime. I have witnesses. Praise God that he protected me. And my kids do not have to visit their mother in jail.

Oh, my God. It is so funny. This is where we're at. The deep state is just partially too stupid not to reveal itself. I really do quite love that. They don't even know or think they're the deep state because they're not bright enough to understand it. Yes. No reasonable person would ever put any of these people into positions of power.

And now that they're all there. What do you think? Should we explain to Jenica Pounds that like she's going to be an official mouthpiece and that we will give her privileged information in exchange and that everybody gets paid and we're all happy? No, don't bother. She wouldn't understand it. Yeah. Instead, well, I mean, yeah, the truth, they made her like. an unofficial mouthpiece.

Apparently, they try to use that, here's a way, it's like, we want to release these documents that, you know, for a particular partisan effect. And, oh, you are, you are the outlet. We're just going to, we're going to use your following to sort of like, yeah, launder these documents. So it appears as though it's coming from like an independent journalist. Why don't you fucking use your little numbers brain, you fucking moron, to count the amount of calories you're depriving fucking children in Cuba of murdering them

year after year with your imperialist policies, you dog shit, human being. I hate everybody from Genica Pounce all the way up the Pentagon and that dumb shit in charge as well. It'd be funny if like in the sort of like mission briefing room for this op, they had like a bulletin board with little cutouts of all of the influencers. And when something like this happens with one of their guys, like they have to like move the the picture over to the like too stupid to be an asset like side of the bulletin board. Like well, they've crossed the threshold. Burn after reading bullshit-ass scenario. Yeah, it's so true.

Yeah, I did not give that movie enough flowers when we watched it however many years ago. Jenica Pound's like if Brad Pitt had shot himself in that movie. And lived. So Rogers then entered Pound's replies on Twitter and revealed that she was the supposed deep state operative who handed over the information. Rogers said that the markings were ordinary FOIA-style redaction. applied even when an agency voluntarily releases documents, not classification markings, demonstrating that Pounds would be committing a crime.

So the question is, who did Pounce talk to? Because she said, I talked to people. Yes, a good question. Very, very vague. Who did she talk to that, like, told her, oh, they're trying to trap you? Whoever she's consulting with is also equally as paranoid. So to demonstrate that there was no trap, Rogers published the documents herself, Pounds then withdrew the allegation and apologized for making a public spectacle of the situation.

After this, the MAGA-A-alligned account, A.F. Post, summarized the dispute and then added a previously unknown description. They said, Jenica Pounds, aka Data Republican, a Department of War employee. Incredible. This appears to be the first public disclosure of her employment, some other weird anonymous account who, how the hell did they get this information? That is also kind of suspicious, you know, it seems as though they've been, they're, privy to some secret information. So once AF Post made the allegation, journalists contacted the Pentagon. On August 24th, AP reporter Konstantin Toropen reported that the Pentagon confirmed that Pounds

is a special government employee of the Department of War. Later that same day, Pounds published her own statement saying that she had joined the department in July to serve the country in a more hands-on way, she said. She emphasized that she was no longer part of the press corps. Basically, she was part of the press corps up until June, and then in July, she became a literal employee of the Pentagon. She doesn't even understand how being an employee works then. Hey, girl, you're inside now.

You're in on the conspiracy. Yeah, two paranoid realized, no, you've been welcomed into the fold. You are the deep state now. Yeah, that's what's really making these people's brains short circuit. Yeah. And so that's how a woman who gained fame supposedly uncovering secret government activity, herself became a secret employee of a federal government. Once her government role became public, her supporters, including an account supposedly operated by her mother, were forced to argue that

being a Fed is respectable after all, provided that the Fed in question works for Defense Secretary Pete Hegsef. The drunkest guy, yeah. Bringing her mom into this. This revelation led reporters to question, you know, how many more online commentators are secretly federal employees and what exactly are they getting paid for. Will Sommer, in his reporting, portrays Hegseth as constructing an unofficial online political operation inside and around the Pentagon, one of which people simultaneously function as government personnel and partisan influencers without clearly disclosing which role they are playing. The Washington Post reported that the Pentagon has quietly placed at least three more prominent conservative influencers in civilian government positions. They publicly promoted Hegss's agenda

without disclosing their Pentagon affiliations. They included, Rob Maness, a retired Air Force colonel with more than 135,000 Twitter followers. Kurt Schlichter, a retired Army colonel, attorney in town hall columnists with nearly 620,000 followers. He's legendary on Twitter, by the way, for like various blunders. Yes. He's incredible. And there's also Thomas Anderson, a retired Army colonel who posts as cynical Publius to more than 323,000 followers. He's so cynical that he's in on it.

So cynical. He's decided to just join, you know, join the opposition. Yeah. Can't beat him. Join him. While serving in or advising the Pentagon, the men continued to publish partisan commentary without revealing their government roles. Madness, for example, has called for the removal of disloyal Pentagon career employees,

publicly defended hex-sacist military educational policies, attacked army leaders for resisting tougher ROTC standards, and publish a letter in the New York Post defending Hegsseth without disclosing his Pentagon affiliation. It sort of sounds to me that like Pete Heggzeth created this program just to hire influencers to defend him. Pete Hegeseth, if he was a serious person, would have a situation room with everybody actually seated in it.

Instead of trying to do this work from home as bullshit network of operatives that he's using to pressure like inside and outside targets. Heg Seth has become a swear word in my home, by the way. when I stub my toe real bad, I'll go, ah, fucking heck, Seth. It's such a disgusting sound that, like, I associate it with pain and, yeah, it's become like a swear word. I don't mean that in, like, a really cringe lib way.

It's just, I just sort of... No, no, no, you are. You're a millennial crib on Tumblr. Am I a millennial, though? Yeah, I mean, yeah. Yes, you fool? We both are. Early 80s?

Yes. Early 83 is millennial. You're an elder millennial, but yeah, you're a millennial. An ancient millennial. You're not Gen X, bro. Of course you're not Gen X. You thought you were Gen X? I don't know what I am anymore.

But yeah, so this is the very weird situation. Like there's a handful of people being secretly paid by the Pentagon who are commenting about, you know, Pentagon policy and apparently trying to reinforce Hegss's like agenda, even like his sort of eternal agenda, not even necessarily the full agenda of the Pentagon, but also at the same time, there seem to be being fed secretly documents from the State Department in order to serve their agenda too. So it's a very strange situation. And like, was it still unknown? How deep the rabbit hole goals on this one? I love this. I'm so for like the entire deep state leaking out of its own ears, like just just having a total fucking

breakdown. Yeah, they certainly have never been this messy before, at least in my lifetime, at least while studying this kind of stuff. We've had big fuck-ups, but not anything like this. This is like having someone be like, God has protected me from the deep states attempted and trapping me. Meanwhile, she's a Pentagon employee. Like, what are you having a mental break? What the fuck is wrong with you?

They're just like, oh, no, she was too stupid. Fuck, fuck. She was too dumb. Literally was too stupid for her role in this case. It's especially just it was supposed to be so simple. It's like, all right, here are some documents we want to make public. Here they are. You can talk about them.

I bet they thought it was like, this is a layup, the easiest thing. No way she could fuck this one up. But somehow she did. Or not even stupid necessarily. You know, I'll give her some credit. Just extremely paranoid to the point where she's like, the people who are paying me aren't trapping me. They're using me.

I am to become a puppet in there. You know, everybody is living a movie plot in their head, which would, you know, would make you paranoid. She's having basically like a paranoid break, but before that she read the document and she said, this is a nothing burger, which is very funny. She basically rated their propaganda as not good content and then had a mental breakdown in which she invokes God and pretends she was entrapped. It's a beautiful story, really.

Beginning to end, no notes. I've been here, like I've been here spiritually so many fucking times. Like if I'm her, I get the thing. I go, this isn't that big a deal. Oh, but it says not for public release. Well, why do they want me to post it then? Well, they wouldn't have given it to me if they didn't want me to post it. I'm going to post it because I do want the breaking scoop.

They are giving me a gift. That's what he said. He wouldn't have said gift if they were doing something weird. I'm going to post it. And then I post it. And then I'm like out to lunch or coffee with a friend next day. I'm like, do you think it's weird that this thing says like another idiot friend? And I'm like, it's weird that this says like public release on it.

They're like, oh, yo, you shouldn't have posted that. I'm like, wait, what? I shouldn't have. Like, I could see myself getting into a snafu like this so easily. So you're just saying you would be Genica Pounds in another. I could be. Instead of being here on QAA, the most charming host, I would be, I could be Jake Pounds. Yeah.

But it would be like a UFO story or something. It would be some sort of sci-fi affiliation, not, I don't think I would be interested in, I'd be like, well, what's so wrong? I know a bunch of DSA people there. They're pretty nice. Yeah, yeah, you reveal your secret affiliations in other, also dumb ways, just not quite like this. Yeah, my affiliations to various fast food chains around the country. You may know Will Somer from his newsletter, False Flag, which he publishes with the ballwork. You may know him from his book on the history of Q&ON, trust the plan.

You may also know him from his 10 guest appearances, including this one on the QAA podcast. Wow. I counted, yeah. Will, thank you so much for joining us again. Wow, 10 times. 10. That's awesome. Yeah, we go way back.

I didn't know that. I didn't realize this was your 10th anniversary. I know. We should get you a fruit basket or something. That's a record. We should send something, some kind of, we'll send like some weird, some kind of like biological weapon in an envelope to your residence or so. That's like QAA because some sort of like deep state assassination plot or something. That would be appropriate. Yeah, no, I mean, I think I started going on before Travis even had joined the pod. So it's a long time ago. Yeah. Yeah. Crazy. Oh, and you know what's so awesome about all of this is that things have gotten so much better. It's not as if any of the people and any of the creatures that, you know, we've been covering over the near decade studying QAnon are pulling the highest levers of power in the government now. And here we are still podcasting, still chatting about things. So welcome back. Yeah, happy to be here. So before he came on, we talked a bit about the saga of, you know, Jenick,

pounds and her paranoid freak out that led to the revelation that she is a special government employee of the Pentagon. And yeah, I mean, first of, yeah, what was your reaction when you first learned this? Yeah, you started digging, you started asking about the Pentagon about like what exactly she was doing. What did they tell you? I mean, it's sort of an interesting arc here. I mean, we had a situation where sort of amid the genica pounds blow up with the State

Department. This kind of Groyper account, AF Post, America First Post. they said, well, by the way, she's a defense department employee. And that really was not out there before. I checked with that person. I mean, that was like something they got on their own. So who knows what kind of like weird factionalism was going on there? But basically, I asked the Pentagon and they said, yes, she's a special government employee.

They were very tight-lipped about it. I said, okay, what's her job? What kind of employee? Where does she work? And they said, no more questions. And so, you know, it was a weird situation where they seemed to have been like, all right, we got to, look, mainstream media, we don't care, but AF post, they call us out. got to admit it. So a little peek into this kind of strange operation. Yeah, it's, uh, yeah,

it's really, really bizarre. So we refuse to answer like, yeah, like deeper questions, like her duties, compensation, like who her supervisor is, right? None of us we know. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, I mean, my sense is that she works for this sort of this massive bureaucracy within the Pentagon, this civilian part that's like the Office of Administration and Management. But that could be anything, really. And, you know, what exactly her job is, they won't say. I mean, they won't, you know, We know some of these kind of social media influencers who are working for the Pentagon. We're on some kind of like anti-D-EI task force at the military academies. But hers is, her role is like really unexplained.

And it's pretty rare. This Pentagon hates the press, obviously. But like they won't say it. I think if it was something innocuous, they'd probably just say it if they just said, you know, I don't know, she's reviewing the finances at some agency or something. But it's very odd. Yeah. I mean, when did you start thinking like maybe this isn't just a weird one-off thing?

And maybe it's like this is indicative. of maybe a larger network of people who are secret to government employees like this. Yeah, you know, I mean, I should say first of all, I tried to stay away from data Republican content before this. She's not one of my favorite characters. You know, I'm glad to be discussing it with you guys because she kind of recalls like a classic kind of like QAnon influencer type where it's like someone who's like the wonk, the number cruncher, the person who's going to, you know, really prove the breadcrumbs, a baker, if you will. And instead, you know, but a lot of her stuff is like really unsatisfying to read in terms of like, okay, maybe she's really got a bombshell this time.

And you look at and you're like, all right, she kind of did a Google search. You know, this is like a Wikipedia page. So, and then, you know, people like Lara Logan are going crazy over it. But essentially when I started to wonder what else was going on here was, I saw, and I'm not big on like conservative military Twitter, but you had these figures with names like cynical Publius, a classic kind of like Roman statue guy who has like 100 or 300,000 followers. This guy named Infantry Dort, who's a serving lieutenant colonel. These people were all kind of like defending her in weird ways. And it was sort of like they had been found out preemptively and were like kind of panicking.

And like, you know, we love data Republican. And so it kind of felt like like the beehive had been kicked. And all of a sudden these guys were swarming various kind of military reporters or kind of critics of Pete Heggsuff. You know, they kind of remind me of like, remember in the early days of QAnon where you had, it was like this sort of trifecta of like Brian Cates. And then there was like Imperator Rex. And there were all these guys with kind of like Roman. names that were kind of like military strat guys that were doing Q and on without sort of

saying Q. They were basically Spygate guys. Why do they always choose like these Roman Praetorian sort of like, is that just a white supremacist thing? That may be the explanation. I mean, it's like a weird crew and this idea that like it kind of creates this effect. And, you know, if it ultimately turns out that the Pentagon is paying these people for posts, you could understand why, because it sort of creates this effect of like, well, all of these disparate people are saying Pete Hegseth is awesome, and it's just stupid to wonder if he's paying these influencers. And it kind of gives you the sense of like, if you're just a casual observer, like, well, I guess there's nothing here.

But the way they've been going after like Dan Lamoth, the Pentagon reporter at the Washington Post, who wrote one of these stories, they're just like, this guy should be, you know, arrested for treason for asking, you know, what cynical publicist's job at the Pentagon. There's just a sense, I feel like we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg on this story. Yeah, this is a real frustrating thing about this. story is like, you know, there's a question about to what extent did the Pentagon hire people who are programmers or ex-military people for their supposed policy expertise for various matters, and they happen to have large online followings, and to what extent have the Pentagon sort of

like influenced what they post, that this might, you know, be some kind of like, you know, a influence operation. Now, that's purely speculative, but like, I mean, when you, the Pentagon's literally paying people who have like 100, 200, 300,000 followers, I think it invites that kind of speculation. I think in particular in the case of Jenica Pounds, I mean, some of these people like Kirch-Schlichter, cynical Publius, and these are people who were in the military. I suspect the job they were doing if it was on this anti-DI think is basically foolishness.

Like it is no real like operational value to the military. But she has, as far as I know, no military experience. There's no real reason to hire her unless it's either for her social media capabilities or you know, possibly for this weird kind of like Antifa DSA mapping she does. And this is another aspect is she'll come out and say like, you know, here's the web of, you know, how I can prove Hassan Piker as an agent of the Cuban government or whatever. And I think there is some value for the administration, which is trying to do this like crackdown on the left to have someone who is like ostensibly an expert saying, you know, look at these

like terrorist networks that they can then use to justify sanctions or investigations. We'll have to see, but I think that that potentially is, it could be part of her work at the Pentagon. You spoke to a figure that almost became a special government employee named John Conrad. So like, yeah, how far into the process did he get there? Yeah, so this is like one of the many weird characters in right wing media. I think some conservative relatives of mine are really big fans of his. He's like a shipping analyst ostensibly. But so he's always just like talking about the merchant marine, but he's also like, you know,

Trump's going to save shipping, which obviously I guess is a big thing. after COVID. But basically, he's a member, like, Jenica Pound's, of this weird, like, reshaped Pentagon Press Corps when they kicked all the real reporters out, including, like, Newsmax, One American News, and they didn't sign the loyalty oath, essentially, and then they brought in people like Data Republican. And he was in this process to become a special government employee, and then he, they ghosted him essentially is how he put it, and he sent them an email that he published on Twitter that was like, I sold all my stocks, let me work at the Pentagon. So he kind of, like, got lost along the way. But again, this is a guy with like a big social media following kind of pro-Trump figure

who was in the process of being co-opted into the administration. And I think presumably like these other figures probably wouldn't have disclosed it. Yeah. I mean, like we're not for pounds weird blow up in exposing her text messages with, you know, the State Department undersecretary. This might have been remaining the secret for the rest of the Trump administration. Yeah. She's a legend for this one. I mean, it's so, I mean, it's like a watergate like being exposed by like these bumbling plumbers or whatever you have, like where in many ways in conservative media and the administration, you have to operate and work with people who are often like paranoiacs or incompetent or have all these other issues that you wouldn't want if you were trying to pull off a scheme.

And every so often it blows up like this. Yeah, you talk about like HECS sort of like new media strategy. Yeah, we come straight from Fox News. So I'm really curious, you know, the extent to which his involvement, or at least the Pentagon's involvement with these people is like part of a, you know, perhaps a more savvy than it might appear attempt to influence the public narrative about about these matters. And, you know, the Pentagon, needless to say, is not supposed to be running domestic influence operations.

Like, you know, I mean, they're not supposed to be producing propaganda. You know, Jennifer Pounds, this whole thing initially started that she was, you know, being roped into some scheme to, like, beat the war drums about Cuba by the State Department. You know, these figures who are writing these opeds that don't just close they're working with Pentagon, people like Kurt Schlichter. it's a weird thing. And, you know, the other aspect that strikes me is how people like pounds were involved in this kind of like Pentagon infighting where so the Secretary of the Army who just resigned

Dan Driscoll, big enemy of Pete Hexeth. When she's working for the Pentagon, she's tweeting like, oh, that Dan Driscoll's getting up to no good. It's a strange situation. And again, I mean, I think it makes you wonder if Pete Hexeth, you know, kind of brought these people in to kind of run cover for him online. Yeah, it's like it's not that she's, it's like an opinion, right? She has those two, obviously.

but it's presented as data. That's the crazy thing is that this is somebody sponsored by the Pentagon that is producing data that is being used by right-wing operatives to achieve a political agenda. So it feels even slimy because it's not even so much that there's obviously the, oh, he's doing such a great job, Matthew 314 or, you know, whatever. But, you know, it's here's hardcore data on the terrorist-run organization that I can directly link. to Hassan Piker. The Pentagon paying to put that kind of stuff out in the public to make readers believe that there is some kind of statistic behind their war against quote unquote communism

is really frightening, I think. Yeah, totally. I mean, you have a situation where, you know, and I think absent or information from the Pentagon, I think it's fair to speculate a little here, but like we have Pentagon employee, Jenica Pounds, who's putting out political smears at minimum aimed at, you know, the government's opponents. And, you know, potentially, you know, things that could theoretically be used for investigations, things like that. Sure. You know, sanctions against, you know, foreign entities. And so I think it's, you know, Jake, you got it something that I think is something we see over and over in right wing media.

And Data Republican is part of this, someone like John Solomon, who's this kind of like quasi-journalist, who's also a special government employee at the White House. You have these characters who sort of like put a veneer of analysis or journalism on something. Sure. And we saw this with the State Department leak to Data Republican where they're like, you look at the actual documents and you're like, who cares? this means nothing. Oh, the government didn't, the Biden administration didn't want people saying elections were stolen. Well, that's understandable because they weren't stolen. But you have to kind of spin it to someone who's going to say bombshell exclusive or like is going to have a screenshot of an

Excel sheet. You can't really understand like data Republican. And then that gives it, you know, a couple days legs in right wing media before everyone forgets about it. But sort of that sense of like, they uncovered something is there. Right. And they're so wary about it, right? In, in left wing media, you know, the government, it's, you know, it's government-run, it's state-sponsored media, you know, CNN is state-sponsored media. But it's like, you know, I hate to be one to just point out hypocrisies because there's always thousands. But, I mean, they're so wary about it, you know, when it comes to, quote-unquote, legacy media. But here's an example of an actual deep state for lack of a better, you know, lack of a better term, paying people that are presenting, you know, information as unbiased or, or, you know, not disclosing.

who they're employed by. You know, it's a sad example that Operation Mockingbird is still alive. Alive and well, but... It's one of these things where, as you said, I mean, initially, Data Republican, Jennifer Pounce, her whole claim was, like, the deep state's out to entrap me for treason. But, I mean, she's kind of the deep state, right?

Like, you know, someone who's, like, secretly a government agent, shaping public perception. I mean, what could be more deep state than that? And, you know, the thing that cracked me up was, her mom is very active on Twitter. Mom of Data Republican is her name. And she was saying, like, you know, after all this came out, People were saying, whoa, data Republicans are Fed.

She's an op, whatever. She was saying, actually, I think Fed is a good thing. What is the federal government, but sort of a collection of all of us? You know, we should praise people who are feds. We are the Fed. I mean, I think, I think, yeah, this really illustrates to the extent to which their objection to, like, the deep state or whatever, was that they weren't a part of it. They weren't part of the club, the secret club.

And so they feel a lot more comfortable of, like, you know, their guys are, like, secret employees. Well, you know, it goes back to kind of the talk about like weaponization where it's like the Justice Department was weaponized against Jan Sixers or whatever. And then they're like, now that we're in charge, though, it will be extremely weaponized. You know, Kobe put some seashells on the beach. Let's get his ass. Well, and I mean, even the text message that she leaked, she's like, okay, and you want me to leak these things even though like it's not redacted? Like, I will happily do this.

She said she was like happy to help in whatever way you see fit or something. Yeah, like happy to serve. serve master, and then the deep state tried to entrap me. Happy to serve, Master. It's like, Elon being like, Epstein is despicable. He's like, please get me away from my children on Christmas morning. No, it's crazy. I mean, you're referring to me.

She put out these direct messages with the Undersecretary of State where she's like, look at this lady trying to entrap me. And she inadvertently reveals these messages where, you know, she's kind of posing as this figure kind of probing the government. And she's saying, you know, whatever you say, happy to help. Yeah, you know, we're talking a bit about like, what makes a story intriguing is that like, you know, of how much we don't know, you know, we don't know how, you know, deep the rabbit hole goes, so to speak. And the possibilities of what all of this means could range from, like,

you know, kind of shady to genuinely scandalous. Like, I'm curious, like, if you could, like, make a FOIA request that the government, like, had to answer, like, in a day or something, you could get some crucial piece of information about what's going on in the Pentagon. What would it be? What would you request? Yeah, I mean, look, and I'll tell you what I've filed already. I mean, I want everything, you know, related to the hiring of Genica Pounds, you know, I think these other figures are definitely interesting, but I think she's, like, especially interesting because of this, like, weird data collaboration or whatever. You know, everything related to her job description, things like, you know, her ethics

disclosures. And then ultimately, you know, you can try to have fun with FOIA requests. Who knows if you'll get it. But I just said, you know, her past week of emails at her at her Pentagon email address. And so, you know, we'll see. It could take a while, needless to say. But, like, I think that and, you know, if Democrats take back a part of that, the Congress, I think they'll be looking into this as well. But I mean, this administration really seems to like really be clamping down on us finding out what happened here. And that makes me think it's something that's much bigger than like, hey, can you send

a rude tweet about Dan Dreskell? Can you say Pete Hanks up, hates woke, stuff like that? Yeah, I wonder if that's her own personal, that's her own personal flavor. And the Pentagon Fed stuff is all the like data that they can use later to do to do arrests. Yeah, I mean, really, like, it is so odd to me that she's just churning out these databases of leftists and while working for the Pentagon, and I think there's a lot more to come. Yeah, man, really super fascinating out of the story. You also talked a bit about there was a campaign against Charlie Kirk's critics.

And it was like, is this all relevant to understanding this particular Pentagon culture? In terms of data Republican tweeting about it and stuff. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's this one aspect of sort of what's been uncovered about a lot of these Pentagon influencers. Is they're very like mainstream pro-Trump Republicans. So these are not people, they're very pro-Israel, certainly in Data Republicans' case.

They're not like dabbling in kind of Candice Owens' lay in and they're in fact very critical of people like Candice Owens. And so then unfortunately that gives someone like Candice or Tucker Carlson the opportunity to say, you know, the Pentagon is sending its influencers after me. It's a deep state operation against me. I'm really telling the truth. Now, on one

hand, I don't really think they are, but on the other, I mean, there is something to this fact that, you know, Pete Heggseth is, you know, perhaps trying to kind of prop up this sort of pro-Trump typical MAGA narrative with these people. So I think it's it's become a real mess on MAGA media, needless to say. Yeah, it has. I'm like, I'm curious like what you've seen, like to the extent that like after these revelations, you know, these people who are usually, you know, very, the audiences of these influencers usually skeptical of like feds or the deep state or that kind of thing. Like how have they reacted to the revelation that

they're secret employees? Are they accepting it? It's like, why are they glad that, like, you know, that someone that they like is in the employees. Or they think it's very strange that someone has gone from, like, you know, being such a harsh critic of the federal government while, you know, accepting these papers and promoting these talking points while not disclosing that they're literal employees of the Pentagon. You know, I think it's mixed. I think on one hand you're seeing, you know, certainly people who are already critical of Genica for her support of Israel, for kind of like, very kind of like mainline republicanism. these kind of more Tucker Carlson-like figures are really saying like, there it is. You know, you can see that this person who's been our foe

really have these ulterior motives. I think I've seen some of her followers or people who are more allied with her saying, like, this is weird. Why didn't you just close this? And then, you know, all of these figures attract these just like followers who are just like, because they see like a chart or, you know, kind of a crazy wall,

they say, this person's a genius, you know what? And I will follow them into battle. And so they're very defensive and supportive of her. Yeah, I think Jenna Pound's like strategy does revolve like, well, first of all, she's very AI driven. She seems to lean pretty heavily on these tools to create these networks and graphics and even to write her post, apparently. Yeah, I mean, you know, to that point, like, one of the challenges of writing this story and figuring out, like, what everyone's goals are, you know, what's a paid post or whatever, is that, like, everyone involved or most of them are using AI. And so, like, there are just these weird lines and the tweets. I mean, she's very open about using AI and that she had her book, which is coming out next

month, ghost written. I mean, so it's often kind of like, what does this person really believe? You know, there's just a sense, I think, maybe it's, you know, very 2026 politics thing that, like, if you just churn out a lot of content and put a headline on it, you know, people will believe that it, oh, you know, I'm not going to read 2,000 words about that, but it looks good to me. Yeah, you mentioned, like, the story is not over. I mean, what really made me curious is, like, the extent to which you're, you know, you

which, you know, they're so known. It's like, I find it difficult to sort of accept the more benign explanation of what's going on here. And, you know, there's other possibilities beyond simply a strange domestic influence operation by the Pentagon, which, to my understanding, would be illegal, right? Yes, exactly. The Pentagon is not supposed to be running sort of like domestic propaganda. And then even beyond that, it seems as though this may be a network where the Pentagon is promoting not just the United States government agenda, in the domestic way, but also promoting the specific agenda of Pete Hegsef to the point of, like,

intimidating or influencing policy within the Pentagon that aligns with sort of Hegsef. And that's, that's another kind of like spooky possibility. Because like, he's like, instead of like, you know, he's sort of like using these influencers to shape the, the Pentagon that he runs, you know? Yeah, I mean, you know, I'll give you an example, this infantry dork guy, this lieutenant colonel, who is sort of inexplicably allowed to post, almost. on Twitter constantly during the working day, attacking Democratic politicians. Like, you know, let's say you're not supposed to be a political actor if you work for the

military and sort of, you know, particularly in public, you know, in your military role. And this is someone who's posting things like, I'm, you know, Pete Higgsett's going to root out these Pentagon bureaucrats root and branch. And it's like, you're down the hall from them, man. You know, these are, this is the Pentagon these state that you're in. And so, as you said, I mean, it's a very weird thing. These guys were writing op-ed saying, oh, Pete Hegseth, this specific condition. if he's doing what a genius or like these generals are a bunch of wimps.

You know, it's very odd. And I think he's obviously like a very embattled guy. I mean, the secretary of the army just resigned and kind of blasted him, you know, over these readiness concerns. We're seeing the Washington Post is getting the story about, you know, the generals saying they're not ready for another war, like the Iran war is sapping, you know, truth, morale, and strength. So I think, you know, you can kind of see why he would want a couple people saying nice things about him.

Yeah, it's interesting. So Jennifer Pound's legend, during her doge days back in 2025, She apparently went through a vetting process to possibly get a federal appointment, but she withdrew after learning the position would restrict her posting. I mean, it's interesting that she and these other people don't feel any such restrictions. She says, I will never stop posting. Yeah, right. Oh, God. But, yeah, I mean, yeah, we were joking earlier.

It seems like a real, you know, vindication of people with perhaps schizophrenic activities. And there really are secret feds everywhere on social media. Yeah, I mean, you know, one thing to understand about her is like she is, she is, just wrong constantly. And not in like small ways or it's like, well, you missed a decimal point there. But it's like she just has basic misunderstandings about facts. And so, for example, she claimed that Senate Majority Leader John Thune, he wasn't passing the SAVE Act because he was in, he was secretly being controlled by Punch Bull News, these sort of congressional, you know, news outlet. And her evidence for this was that they have a podcast called Fly Out Day, where you go to their

row house in D.C. and politicians get interviewed. John Thune was on it. But she interpreted that as like, they were going on trips together. They were like jetting off to the Caribbean or something with him. She was like they're linked by a flyout days. And so, I mean, these are like kind of basic concepts that she misunderstands. And then sort of just spins into these big theories. They're both, by the way, on Twitter, Schlichter and, um, and Data Republican being like, the legacy media has got it wrong again.

They were like, look at how they're smearing us. You know, it's interesting. I wonder who else, there are any other influencers who haven't been revealed yet as being on the payroll here. I mean, I think some of them kind of blew up their spot by kind of doing this swarm defending Data Republican. You know, it makes you wonder, are there kind of some sleepers who are a little smarter than that? Or it's like, you know, if you'll let Jay the Republican take this one, you know, and I'll keep up my unrelated Pete Hags have posting. Yeah, do we have any, do we have any Q&ON players on there on my team, you know,

Do we have any rare, any rare foil cards in that deck? Because I would be very interested. I would be very interested to see if they've got like a Cates or somebody on the payroll. That would be very interesting because to somebody like Pete Hegseth, someone who minorly promotes QAnon is not a big deal, maybe even preferable because you know who else majorly promotes it? his boss, the president, on his social media. So, and everywhere else.

So that's, yeah, you know, I wouldn't be surprised. I'm curious to see how this unfolds, Will, maybe this could be a two-parter, a delayed two-parter, delayed release, time capsule, you know. Yeah, I'd love to come back. I mean, it's a frustrating situation because I feel like we're kind of pointing out and saying, this is weird. And people say, okay, okay, what were they up to? I don't know.

Yeah. But it's weird. I mean, you know, it's telling that, like, all of these guys are saying, I wasn't paid for posts. Okay, well, you know, number one, you know, you could easily, the fact that you've been brought in at all is influencing you. I mean, I was thinking if, like, I was like, took a second job at Chipotle and I'm just constantly on podcasts and writing articles being like, I love that new Carnegie Asada or whatever. You know, I mean, that matters, even if they aren't publicly saying there's a conflict of interest there. And I think there's, we're in this kind of like weird world where we see this with right wing influencers who go on like junkets too or they're getting paid for various things.

And they're just kind of like no ethical standards apply to us. Okay. Like, like, that's the standard they want where you have someone like Data Republican who's like, I don't know, there's not like a society of like weird Excel spreadsheet people, you know, that that has an ethical code that's going to apply. Yeah. If you were paid by Chipotle and you constantly post about how much Taco Bell sucks and like it wouldn't be very satisfying to say, well, I wasn't paid for those posts. Those are unrelated facts. I mean. Yeah.

To be clear, however, if Pete Exf resigned, I would almost certainly lose my job. Like in the case of real. But there's no conflict of interest or. secret agenda here. It is a, yeah, a frustrating thing because of how many unknowns there are. But tell you what, if some FOIA officer really feels like doing their job and getting back to you, where can people go to learn more about your reporting? Yeah, I mean, you know, I'm at the bulwark. My newsletter's called False Flag. We do a weekly Monday morning live stream at 10 a.m. Eastern called Maga Monday. And then I'm on the bulwark YouTube

and on Twitter at Will Summer, S-O-M-M-M-E-R. All right, fantastic. Hell yes. Thanks again for being the first person to make double-digit guest appearances on the QAA podcast. Yeah, let's go. Let's go. All right, have a good one, Will. Thanks, guys.

Hey, great chatting, man. Thanks for listening to another episode of the QAA podcast. You can go to patreon.com slash QAA and subscribe for $5 a month to get a whole second premium episode for every regular episode, plus access to our entire archive of premium apps. For everything else, we've got a website. website QaAAPodcast.com. We're working on some merch soon. We're going to have some new merch hopefully sooner than later for you to take a look at. So keep an eye out, folks. We'll have a bigger announcement when that drops. And until then, which is not going to be in the next week,

but until then, may the deep dish bless you and keep you. We have auto-keyed content based on your preferences. What's next? Is there a certain part of the government now? that you are really focusing in on? They stick it. Yeah, two things. So my project right now is to work on... See, analyzing connections and relationships

between people in the government. Because... If you research, people, but... If you research, man, belong enough. You start to notice that they're all working together. They're all married. They're all in laws.

They know each other. They all sit on the same. board for many years. And that's my project to nap those relationships and put it on my website.