Several conservative commentators with military backgrounds have pushed back against a Washington Post report alleging that the Pentagon secretly placed them in government roles to promote Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's views and attack critics of the Trump administration's military strategy. Rob Maness, Kurt Schlichter and Thomas Anderson, all former service members, disputed the report's framing, saying it misrepresented brief, disclosed advisory work as covert influence operations, and accused the paper of using improperly obtained personal data about them.

The trio said they had been invited by the Department of War to serve as advisers on a task force examining senior military service colleges, drawing on their military experience and prior commentary, and that this role — for which some received compensation only during the task force's operation — ended by late July 2026. They denied ever being paid for their independent commentary on social media or elsewhere. Washington Post reporter Dan Lamothe defended the piece as "accurate as written", noting that neither the men nor the Pentagon had disclosed their status as special government employees while commenting on defence matters; the Post and the Pentagon did not immediately provide further comment.