Pete Hegseth was barred from protecting President Biden’s inauguration in 2021 after enlisted soldiers complained that Hegseth’s chest tattoo might signify that he was a white supremacist. The D.C. National Guard’s top legal affairs officer at the time tells The Washington Post it was an “overreaction” in the wake of the Jan.

A man who in 2021 was a member of the same National Guard unit as Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump's pick to be defense secretary, confirmed he sent a letter to his superiors warning that a tattoo Hegseth bears indicated that he was a potential "insider threat" ahead of President Biden's inauguration.