yahoo news | Pentagon Demands Retraction Over Insider-Trading Allegations
The Pentagon is demanding an immediate retraction after a *Financial Times* report alleged that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s broker tried to place a multimillion‑dollar investment in a defense‑focused exchange‑traded fund just before the Iran war began. The story said Hegseth’s Morgan Stanley broker contacted global asset manager BlackRock in February to inquire about buying shares of the iShares Defense Industrials Active ETF, which holds major contractors such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and RTX. BlackRock flagged the query internally, but the fund was not available for purchase by Morgan Stanley clients at the time, and no investment was ever made.
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell issued a statement on social media denouncing the report as “entirely false and fabricated,” insisting that Secretary Hegseth and the Department of Defense remain committed to the highest ethical standards and strict compliance with all laws. Parnell demanded that the *Financial Times* remove the story, calling it a “baseless, dishonest smear designed to mislead the public.” He emphasized that neither Hegseth nor any of his representatives approached BlackRock about any such investment.
The controversy comes amid heightened scrutiny of potential insider trading linked to the conflict in Iran, which erupted after a series of U.S. and Israeli airstrikes in late February. Several anonymous users on the prediction market Polymarket placed bets on a U.S. strike on Iran and the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hours before the war began, with one user reportedly winning more than $500,000. These developments have intensified calls for transparency and accountability in how public officials and their financial advisers handle market‑sensitive information.
Read more: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/dod-denies-hegseths-broker-sought-preiran-war-investment.html
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