(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The Washington Post revealed Sunday that several major online influencers are on the Pentagon’s payroll, pumping out propaganda supportive of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Trump administration’s war in Iran.
According to the Post, the online influencers paid by the Pentagon include retired Air Force colonel Rob Maness, retired Army colonel Kurt Schlichter, and retired Army colonel Thomas Anderson. Maness has more than 135,000 followers on X, Schlichter has nearly 620,000, and Anderson has more than 323,000 with his pseudonymous account, Cynical Publius.
Additionally, it had already been revealed prior to the Post’s article that Jennica Pounds, who runs the 956,000-plus follower account Data Republican, is also on the Department of War’s payroll.
The Post noted that while collecting paychecks from the government, the above-mentioned influencers have published numerous pro-government posts and articles. Last month, for instance, Maness wrote in the Daily Caller that Hegseth’s team needs to root out “disloyal” career employees
Schlichter, for his part, published a column on Aug. 6 in Townhall, calling Trump a “hero for finally fighting back against Iran.”
Anderson, meanwhile, said in the Federalist in April that there is “a cancer in America’s military ranks, and it must be expunged before it’s too late,” the Post noted.
Maness and Schlichter reportedly did not respond to messages requesting comment, while Anderson declined to comment.
Anderson later posted about the matter on X, saying he would like to “clarify some things” about a pro-Hegseth article he wrote in February in American Greatness.
“My service with the Department of War as a ‘Special Government Employee’ was exclusively limited to participation in such task force and ended on July 26, 2026,” he said. “At no time have I ever received any compensation of any kind from any government source of any kind for anything I write or have ever written on X or in any magazine or other source. Those who claim otherwise defame me.”
I would like to clarify some things.
On February 16, 2026, the magazine American Greatness published an article I wrote called “Making the War Colleges Great Again.” The article covered a number of recommendations on how to improve the warfighting focus of America’s military… pic.twitter.com/rL0WgUXUzo
— Cynical Publius (@CynicalPublius) August 31, 2026
Shortly before the publication of this article, Schlichter also responded to the Post’s article with a Townhall column entitled, “The Washington Post Embarrasses Itself Trying to Embarrass Me.”
“The [Post] article’s implication was that we were somehow being paid to tweet DOW talking points, which is false. But it had the predictable effect on the predictable dummies of X, who obediently morphed from screaming that I am a ‘Zionist Jew lover’ and ‘Epstein protector’ to a ‘fed.’ It was all an IQ test, and a lot of people failed,” Schlichter wrote.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
