Hacks

How incompetence and corruption set the stage for national security disasters at the Pentagon and FBI

When historians write about the end of America, the first days of 2025 will stand out as a pivotal moment.

Donald Trump, an incompetent, criminal, and psychopathic president, had been re-elected.

His "mob boss" leadership style ensured that key posts were filled with goons like Pete Hegseth and Kash Patel, chosen for loyalty not experience.

His limitless corruption meant that his top donor, Elon Musk, a drug-addled megalomaniacal scofflaw, would be given unprecedented access to federal databases.

2025: In Elon we trust

On his first day back in office, Trump's Executive Order establishing DOGE stated that Elon's primary focus would be on "modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity."

Elon described himself as "humble tech support."

In February 2025, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that Elon and DOGE "would be given access to systems" so that we could strengthen the DOD and create the "most lethal, badass force on the planet."

In April 2025, we learned that Elon had also installed Tarak Makecha, a former Tesla employee, as a "senior adviser" within Kash Patel's FBI, in addition to Makecha's other role, overseeing IT and cybersecurity for the DOJ.

While all this was going on, experts, writing in places like Foreign Policy were already sounding the alarm that DOGE was hacking America, calling it "the most consequential security breach in U.S. history."

2025: Cybersecurity experts get the axe

In April 2025, Pete Hegseth announced he was canceling IT contracts as part of a $5.1 billion cost-cutting effort and bringing in DOGE to help support "the continued rationalization of our IT enterprise."

In June 2025, Axios headlined one article about America's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency: "One-third of top U.S. cyber force has left since Trump took office."

In September 2025, amid ongoing turmoil within the FBI, Democratic Senators questioned Kash Patel about reports that the agency's cyber division would be cut in half, the departure of top cyber officials, and the reallocation of agents to immigration duties and politically motivated investigations. Patel, of course, disputed those claims.

In October 2025, The New York Times detailed the growing threat that was resulting from Trump "eroding America's cybersecurity defenses" at a time when "cyberattacks by the nation’s adversaries have increasingly targeted broader swaths of American communications and public infrastructure."

Importantly, while cutting 78,000 civilian employees in 2025, as the U.S. Government Accountability Office later found, Hegseth's DOD failed to consistently carry out the the legally required impact analysis before making those cuts and had no plans to learn from its mistakes and fix its processes.

As the GAO notes, one of the key reasons to do an impact analysis before firing people is that firing people affects our military "readiness."

2026: National security disasters at the Pentagon and the FBI

In March 2026, FBI Director Kash Patel was humiliated by news that an Iranian hacking group had gained access to and published more than 300 emails and photos from his personal email account. While not a hack of the FBI itself, the case indicates Patel's seeming casualness about cybersecurity.

Also in March 2026, Patel's FBI was hit with another morale-sapping breach, as the DOJ upgraded a China-linked hack of the agency's internal surveillance systems that had occurred weeks earlier to "a major incident."

On 22 September 2026, the hacking group ShinyHunters claimed they had conducted an even larger intrusion at the FBI. As reported by The New York Times, the group "had pilfered intimate details about bureau personnel from the agency’s jobs portal and threatened to leak them online."

On 28 September 2026, the Times revealed more details about the "embarrassing breach," including that the private personal data leaked included names, home addresses, phone numbers, details for spouses and emergency contacts, even "in some cases parents, siblings, and even children." According to the Times, the stolen data included details that agents in sensitive assignments are "expected to zealously protect."

Additionally, "ShinyHunters said that it had stolen medical data about employees, including psychiatric records and documents related to blood and urine tests. It also said that it had additional background check files on employees."

Also in late September, news broke of a devastating, months-long breach at the Pentagon that, reported ABC News "exposed sensitive information belonging to a massive swath of military personnel."

The Pentagon breach exposed the records of more than 3 million people, revealing core identity data, such as Social Security numbers, birthdates, contact information and military occupational specialty.

This breach is made even more scandalous for two reasons: First, it went undetected for nine months, from October 2025 until July 2026. Second, the data was stored unencrypted, a basic security failure.

Against the backdrop of these hacks, the GAO dropped another damning report about the DOD's cybersecurity lapses on 28 September 2026. In a review of 18 major IT programs, the report found that seven did not train staff to spot fraud or tampering in their systems, six had no plans to implement the "zero trust" security approach they are expected to have in place by 2027, and three had no cybersecurity strategy at all.

I titled this article "Hacks." But this is not the HBO comedy. It's a national security shitshow.

Separately, disastrous. Together, a nightmare

Both Pete Hegseth and Kash Patel have developed well-deserved reputations as camera-hogging blowhards more concerned about winning the "war on woke" than actually protecting the nation.

Now, having allowed vast data breaches at both the Pentagon and the FBI, they may have handed U.S. adversaries a detailed map of the U.S. national security workforce.

Not only is our entire country less safe, but millions of individuals are now in potential danger, with some facing physical risk, millions more in danger of identity fraud or targeting by foreign intelligence services.

Both Hegseth and Patel should resign or be fired.

As for Elon? In a sane world, he would never be allowed near our government again. He told us he was our "tech support."

And our tech support has failed.

Thanks for reading and sharing! And an extra special THANK YOU to all my paid subscribers*, past and present, and contributors to my "coffee fund." While paid subscriptions are always welcome, I’m continuing to offer all content free, so choosing a “free” subscription means you'll never miss an issue of UNPRECEDENTED. (*Subscriptions are billed to TLD Media, LLC)

To support this newsletter without subscribing, consider a one-time tip at Buy Me a Coffee.