Senators demand answers from Hegseth over reported defense investment inquiry
A group of Senate Democrats are demanding more information about Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's finances and investments following a report -- which the Pentagon demanded be retracted -- that he may have tried to invest in defense stocks before the war in Iran began roughly five weeks ago.
"If this report is accurate, it would appear to represent an appalling effort to profit off of your knowledge of the President's plans for war," Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Richard Blumenthal, Tammy Duckworth, Jeff Merkley and Gary Peters wrote in a letter to Hegseth -- and provided exclusively to ABC News -- on Wednesday night. "This would be a profound conflict of interest and a potential violation of your federal ethics agreement -- and betrayal of the nation paying the price for this war and the troops you are sending into harm's way."
The Financial Times reported earlier this week that a broker for Hegseth at Morgan Stanley contacted BlackRock -- an equity fund -- and tried to make a multimillion-dollar investment into a fund with defense stocks weeks before the Iran war.
The investment did not go ahead because it was not yet available for Morgan Stanley clients, the Financial Times reported -- adding that it's not clear whether Hegseth's broker found another defense fund to invest in.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/senators-demand-answers-hegseth-over-101229459.html