Dear Global Family,
We are living through a moment that will be looked back on with either shame or relief—depending on what we do now.
At the center of this moment is the man currently serving as our Secretary of Defense. His actions, his financial entanglements, his stated philosophy, and his refusal to submit to ordinary democratic oversight demand our attention. Not as a matter of partisan politics, but as a matter of national survival, international trust, and moral coherence.
This letter is not an attack. It is an observation. And it is a request that we, as a public, begin to look squarely at what is being done in our name.
The Financial Web — Who Benefits?
Let us begin with the question “How far would our Secretary of Defense go to kill people for money and control—and can he not see that the long-term enslavement he is building will one day consume his own children and theirs?”
The answer begins with what his household owns.
Senator Elizabeth Warren documented that Hegseth's wife holds stock in top defense contractors, including Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman—two of the Department of Defense's top 10 largest contractors. These are not passive investments. These are companies that directly benefit from every conflict, every weapons system, every budget increase.
The risk is not theoretical. Some of these contractors have settled allegations that they overbilled the Department of Defense by millions of dollars. Yet the person overseeing them—and potentially expanding their contracts—has a household financial stake in their success.
Despite this, Hegseth refused conflict of interest commitments. In his book, he advocated that generals should not join defense contractors for ten years after leaving service. But when asked to commit to the same standard for himself, he refused. He also declined to promise he would recuse himself from matters involving Fox News or other former employers.
And then there are the trades. Hegseth sold between $100,000 and $550,000 in stocks on March 24, 2025—nine days before President Trump's “Liberation Day” tariff announcement sent markets into a tailspin. The stocks he sold included Amazon, Apple, Lowe's, Walmart, and others that lost value after the announcement. Ethics experts noted the appearance of insider trading, with one stating that “an appearance of wrongdoing is just as bad as if a violation actually occurred, because our system relies on the public being able to trust our leaders.”
He also sold five stocks, including defense contractors Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin and Honeywell, before he was confirmed as defense secretary. His signed ethics agreement did not list plans to divest from any specific stocks.
Now, in office, he is actively reshaping how defense contracts work. He has been on an “Arsenal of Freedom” tour, telling defense contractors he wants “speed and volume” and warning that large primes who don't adapt will “fade away.” He is canceling traditional acquisition systems and replacing them with streamlined processes to get weapons to warfighters faster. The goal: more weapons, quickly, with fewer bureaucratic barriers.
He has criticized what he calls “a cozy club of bloated, over-budget prime contractors” and pledged to open competition to a wider range of companies. But the result is the same: more weapons, more contracts, more money flowing to the industry his household profits from.
This is the financial web. It is not conspiracy. It is documented fact. And it means that when Hegseth orders strikes on thousands of targets, when he defends killing survivors, when he deploys troops without consent—his household stands to gain.
The Pattern - A Lifetime of Financial Misconduct
This is not a one-time mistake. This is a decades-long pattern of treating other people's money—donor money, taxpayer money—as his own.
1. Veterans for Freedom (2009)
Hegseth ran this veterans' advocacy group into the ground. When it collapsed, he sent a letter to donors admitting the organization had less than a thousand dollars in the bank and $434,833 in unpaid bills. The group also had tens of thousands in credit-card debt. Donors had to step in and merge it with another organization just to salvage anything.
2. Concerned Veterans for America (2013-2016)
A whistleblower report obtained by The New Yorker detailed that Hegseth “treated the organization funds like they were a personal expense account—for partying, drinking, and using CVA events as little more than opportunities to 'hook up' with women on the road.” He was forced to resign under pressure amid these financial mismanagement allegations.
3. The Pentagon's $93 Billion September Spending Spree (2025)
Watchdog group Open the Books documented that the Department of Defense dropped $93 billion in a single month—September 2025—to exhaust its budget before the fiscal year ended. This is the largest single-month expenditure for any federal agency since at least 2008.
The breakdown includes:
- $15.1 million on ribeye steak
- $6.9 million on lobster tail
- $2 million on Alaskan king crab
- $98,329 for a Steinway & Sons grand piano installed at the residence of the Air Force Chief of Staff
When questioned about this, Hegseth's defenders pointed out that the troops received some of the food. But that misses the point entirely. The issue is the mechanism: the rush to spend $93 billion before the deadline, the lack of oversight, the culture of treating the Pentagon budget as an all-you-can-eat buffet rather than taxpayer money.
4. Stock Trading Before Market-Moving Announcements
As documented earlier, Hegseth sold between $100,000 and $550,000 in stocks on March 24, 2025—nine days before President Trump's “Liberation Day” tariff announcement sent markets into a tailspin. The stocks he sold included Amazon, Apple, Lowe's, Walmart, and others that lost value after the announcement. Ethics experts noted the appearance of insider trading, with one stating that “an appearance of wrongdoing is just as bad as if a violation actually occurred, because our system relies on the public being able to trust our leaders.”
He also sold five stocks, including defense contractors Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin and Honeywell, before he was confirmed as defense secretary. His signed ethics agreement did not list plans to divest from any specific stocks.
The Signal Scandal - A Separate but Related Breach
While not strictly financial, the Signal scandal reveals the same pattern: rules don't apply to him.
The Pentagon's Inspector General concluded that Hegseth violated Department of Defense policies by sharing sensitive operational information—including the quantity and strike times of manned U.S. aircraft over hostile territory—on the unclassified Signal app, using his personal phone, two to four hours before the strikes.
The IG found that his “actions created a risk to operational security that could have resulted in failed U.S. mission objectives and potential harm to U.S. pilots.” He shared this information in a Signal group chat that included his spouse, his brother, and a journalist.
When the IG tried to interview him, he refused. Instead, he submitted a written statement. The investigation had to rely in part on The Atlantic's public transcript of the messages because Hegseth only provided partial records.
His response? “Total exoneration. Case closed.”
The Boat Strike - Potential War Crimes
In September 2025, Hegseth reportedly issued a verbal order to “kill everybody” aboard a boat in the Caribbean. The boat had already been struck once. The second strike killed survivors who were reportedly clinging to debris.
Legal and military experts have warned the strikes could amount to war crimes. The laws of war prohibit targeting the incapacitated. Hegseth denies giving the order, but the incident is under congressional review.
The Trump EO on Fraud: What It Should Mean
If the Executive Order on fraud is serious—if it's really about stopping the misuse of public funds, the self-dealing, the culture of impunity—then here is what it should require:
- Investigation of the $93 Billion September Spending: Who authorized it? Who benefited? Why is it legal to spend $93 billion in one month to avoid returning money to the Treasury? Where is the oversight?
- Examination of Stock Trades: Did Hegseth or his household have material, non-public information when they sold those stocks? Why did his ethics agreement not require divestment from defense contractors?
- Review of His History: When a pattern stretches back nearly two decades—from Vets for Freedom to Concerned Veterans for America to the Pentagon—it stops being a series of isolated incidents. It becomes a character trait.
- Consequences for Refusing Oversight: Hegseth refused to be interviewed by the Inspector General. He provided incomplete records. He dismissed legitimate inquiries as “gotcha questions.” If the EO on fraud means anything, it must mean that no one is above accountability—especially not the person running the Department of Defense.
On National Security
National security, properly understood, means the people are safe. The country is protected. The institutions that guard us are themselves guarded by law, oversight, and accountability.
Instead, we have a Secretary of Defense who has:
- Ordered strikes on over 7,000 targets in a single conflict
- Publicly defended an attack that killed survivors of an initial strike
- Deployed U.S. troops domestically without the consent of the governor involved—the first such deployment since 1965
- Dismissed congressional oversight as irrelevant
- Refused to testify before committees charged with monitoring his department
- Proposed a defense budget of $1.5 trillion—a 50% increase
These are not the actions of someone who believes in accountability. They are the actions of someone who believes power should have no limits.
When the person responsible for the most destructive military in human history operates without restraint, the public is not safer. The country is not more protected. What is protected is an ideology of endless force, insulated from the very mechanisms designed to restrain it.
That is not security. That is the erosion of security from within.
On Global Alliances
Alliances are built on trust. Trust is built on predictability, shared values, and the belief that commitments will be honored even when inconvenient.
The current Secretary has made his view of allies clear. He has described European partners as “ungrateful.” He has characterized diplomatic and legal constraints as “political correctness” to be discarded. He has refused to offer timelines, rules of engagement, or the kinds of assurances that make military cooperation possible.
When the leader of the Pentagon treats allies as obstacles, those allies adjust. They share less intelligence. They coordinate less closely. They begin preparing for a world in which the United States is no longer a reliable partner.
This is not strength. This is strategic isolation, and it weakens every nation that depends on the alliance—including our own.
On Future Relationships
Every nation watching—every potential partner, every neutral observer, every country deciding where to place its trust—is taking notes.
They are watching whether anyone in our system checks this power. They are watching whether our institutions still function. They are watching whether the United States can still be counted on to act with some measure of restraint.
And they are making decisions accordingly. Potential allies are building relationships elsewhere—with other powers, with regional coalitions, with anyone who appears more stable, more accountable, more bound by something resembling shared norms.
The damage being done is not limited to current relationships. It extends to every future relationship that might have existed. The door is closing, and no one in authority seems to notice or care.
On Moral and Ethical Grounds
For those who hold religious or moral frameworks, an additional question must be asked.
If we believe that human beings are created with dignity, that life is not disposable, that power carries responsibility—then what are we to make of a leader who treats these convictions as irrelevant?
The same hands that order strikes on thousands of targets also hold stock in the companies that build the weapons. The same voice that dismisses oversight also defended killing survivors. The same office that claims to protect us deploys troops without consent and refuses to answer for it.
There is a difference between power and dominion.
Power asks: What can I do?
Dominion asks: What am I responsible for?
We have placed power in the hands of someone who does not appear to feel the weight of dominion. And that absence is not just a political problem. It is a human problem. A spiritual problem. A problem for anyone who believes that creation itself—the earth, the vulnerable, the future—is not ours to destroy.
He is a threat to our national security. A threat to our global alliances. A threat to potential alliances yet unformed. And yes—a threat to God's creations.
What We Are Asking
This letter is not addressed to the Secretary. He has made clear he does not answer to public letters.
This letter is addressed to us—the public, the voters, the neighbors, the ones who still believe accountability matters.
We are asking:
- That members of Congress fulfill their oversight responsibilities and demand testimony.
- That the press continue to ask hard questions and refuse to accept non-answers.
- That faith communities find their voice and speak to the moral dimensions of what is being done.
- That citizens educate themselves and each other about what is being done in our name.
- That we refuse to normalize the abnormal, to accept the unacceptable, to look away from what we see.
A Closing Word
History will not ask whether we were comfortable. It will ask whether we were present. Whether we saw. Whether we spoke.
We are living through a test of our institutions, our alliances, and our moral coherence. The outcome is not yet determined.
But it will be determined by whether enough of us refuse to look away.
I am refusing.
I hope you will too.
P.S. Tell Trump to use his newly Fraud Executive Order to capture and investigate his own Administration, including himself. Lead by example. That's what true leaders do. Fake ones hold no value to the world or God.
Signed,
Vincent Cordova
Future President of the United States