Hegseth's wife was paid by a Lockheed consultant as federal agencies obligated US$66 billion to the company

Jennifer Hegseth, wife of the US defence secretary, was paid for consulting in 2025 by Watchtower Strategy, a public affairs firm that worked for Lockheed Martin that year, according to her husband's annual financial disclosure.

Pete Hegseth signed that report on 14 May 2026, and it lists none of the four books on his December 2024 nominee report, Military.com found in a comparison of four of his filings. The nominee report, published by the Office of Government Ethics, shows HarperCollins paid him advances of US$150,000 and US$348,000 and royalties of between US$100,001 and US$1 million on each of two titles. It also shows two Fox News retirement plans holding up to about US$2.1 million between them, and neither plan appears on the 2025 report.

Daniel Lippman of Politico reported the Watchtower payment on 4 November. The four filings were the two disclosures, Hegseth's ethics agreement of 10 January 2025 and a stock transaction report from April 2025. The disclosure does not give the amount Jennifer Hegseth was paid, and nothing in the four filings connects her work to Watchtower's Lockheed account or to any decision her husband took.

Federal agencies obligated more than US$66 billion to Lockheed in the 2025 fiscal year, USAspending.gov data show. Federal law bars Hegseth from taking part personally and substantially in any matter that would directly and predictably affect his wife's financial interests. His ethics agreement lists "any spouse" among the people whose interests count as his own.

Sean Parnell, the chief Pentagon spokesperson, told Politico the couple are in "full compliance with all ethics laws and regulations". A Watchtower spokesperson told the same outlet that Jennifer Hegseth had helped the firm with conservative television and "has not interfaced with any clients", and declined to say whether she still works there. A Lockheed spokesperson would not discuss Watchtower and said the company works with "a number of companies". Jennifer Hegseth did not respond to a request for comment from Politico.

Watchtower Strategy

Kevin McCarthy, the former Speaker of the House, launched Watchtower in January 2025 as its chair, with Dan Conston, the former president of the Congressional Leadership Fund, as chief executive. The other founding partners were the Republican fundraiser Jeff Miller, the ad maker Brian O. Walsh and Cliff Sims, a former deputy director of national intelligence. Arthur Schwartz, an adviser to Donald Trump Jr., joined them straight from running Hegseth's confirmation campaign. The Senate confirmed Hegseth on 24 January 2025 by 51 votes to 50, with Vice President JD Vance breaking the tie.

The firm described itself at launch as a "full-service public affairs firm" offering strategy, advocacy, crisis communications and C-suite consulting. It was doing general consulting work for Lockheed by May 2025.

Watchtower's spokesperson said in the same statement that a public affairs firm would naturally want to hire one of Fox News's best-known former producers, and that Jennifer Hegseth gave no advice on defence matters. She spent 18 years at Fox News, where she was a producer on "Fox & Friends" when she met her husband.

Matt Gaetz, the former Republican congressman who was Trump's first choice for attorney general, tagged Hegseth's official account in a post on X on 4 November. He wrote that he would have exposed the arrangement had Lloyd Austin's wife worked for a lobbying firm while Austin led the Pentagon. "Wives of Cabinet members shouldn't be paid by lobbyists," Gaetz wrote. Representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, has filed articles of impeachment accusing Hegseth of breaching the War Powers Resolution over the Iran war. Trump said on 4 November he was not replacing Hegseth.

Three paying clients

Three organisations paid Jennifer Hegseth for consulting in 2025: Watchtower, the America First Policy Institute and Morrison Cohen, a New York law firm, the annual report shows. It became public in September. Officials must name each source that paid a spouse more than US$1,000 in earned income but need not give the amount, so a single line can cover anything from a few thousand dollars to several million.

The America First Policy Institute, a think tank launched in 2021 by former Trump administration officials, named Jennifer Hegseth a senior adviser on 3 August 2026. Trump signed Executive Order 14417 the same day, creating the President's Military Spouse Commission with her as chair. The commission advises the president on housing, child care, employment and health care for military families, includes the spouses of the service secretaries and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and runs for two years unless extended.

The commission's charter appoints non-federal members as experts or consultants under 5 USC 3109, which makes them special government employees bound by federal conflict-of-interest law. Her White House biography lists her on a Barracks Task Force steering more than US$1.2 billion to troop housing. Neither the filings nor the charter show whether she was appointed under section 3109 or what ethics screening she received. They also leave open whether her consulting for the three clients continued once she took the post.

Lockheed in the household

Jennifer Hegseth's father was a Lockheed Martin executive who died in 2009. Her rollover retirement account held Lockheed shares worth between US$1,001 and US$15,000 when her husband filed his nominee report, along with Northrop Grumman and Honeywell in the same range, line 2.15 and neighbouring lines of that report show. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts asked Hegseth on 17 January 2025 to commit that he and his wife would divest defence contractor stock. The household sold all three holdings on 7 February 2025, according to an April 2025 transaction report.

The Pentagon accounted for 63 per cent of Lockheed's 2025 sales, according to the company's annual report. Hegseth toured the F-35 assembly line at Lockheed's Fort Worth plant on 12 January 2026 and told workers he believed the company would "step up" to the department's demands on acquisition, while acknowledging he had criticised the large contractors.

The books

Hegseth's nominee report, signed on 23 December 2024 and certified on 10 January 2025, lists six entries for four books, each described as "value not readily ascertainable". HarperCollins paid a US$150,000 advance and between US$100,001 and US$1 million in royalties for "Battle for the American Mind", and a US$348,000 advance and royalties in the same range for "The War on Warriors". "American Crusade", published by Center Street, paid between US$2,501 and US$5,000, and Simon & Schuster paid less than US$201 for "In the Arena", the OGE filing shows. HarperCollins is owned by News Corp, which is controlled by the Murdoch family that also controls Fox News's parent.

In his ethics agreement of 10 January 2025, Hegseth said he receives royalties from HarperCollins, Center Street and Simon and Schuster. He committed not to take part in matters in which those publishers are or represent a party unless ethics officials authorise it. The 2025 annual report has no entry for any of the books.

Office of Government Ethics guidance treats intellectual property as reportable if it is worth more than US$1,000 at the end of the reporting period or produced more than US$200 in income during it, whether or not payment has arrived. Royalty rights can be sold, assigned or terminated, or can fall below both thresholds. Hegseth's filings give no account of which happened to the four books, and a sale of rights worth more than US$1,000 would ordinarily appear as a transaction or as income.

The Fox plans and the bank account

The nominee report listed a Fox News cash balance pension plan holding between US$381,004 and US$865,000 across five investments, and recorded that Hegseth would keep participating although Fox had stopped contributing. It listed a Fox News deferred compensation plan in his wife's name holding between US$600,002 and US$1,253,000. Neither plan appears on the 2025 report. Fox paid Hegseth a salary of US$4,602,340 over 2023 and 2024, the nominee report shows.

An account labelled "U.S. bank #2" held between US$15,001 and US$50,000 on the nominee report and more than US$1 million on the annual report. Distributions or rollovers could account for the Fox plans leaving the report, but the annual report does not say which occurred or where the money went. The annual report marks Hegseth's Tennessee sole proprietorship, registered under his own name in Goodlettsville, as inactive while he serves.

The ethics sign-off

Danica Irvine, the Pentagon ethics official who certified Hegseth's nominee report, was also the official to whom he addressed his ethics agreement. On 24 August 2026 she recorded her opinion that the annual report showed compliance with applicable laws and regulations, a judgement based on the information the filing contained.

Parnell said by email that the department works to screen senior leaders from matters involving former employers or private interests, and called claims of non-compliance slander. He did not say whether Jennifer Hegseth holds a security clearance. She attended a meeting with British defence officials in August, and Parnell said she stayed only for introductions and was not present for any discussion of classified information.

The law and the missing documents

Section 208 of title 18 of the US Code makes it a crime for an executive branch employee to participate personally and substantially in a particular matter in which the employee's spouse has a financial interest. A separate rule, 5 CFR 2635.502, treats any organisation for which a spouse serves as a consultant as a covered relationship. The official must step aside from matters involving that organisation where a reasonable person would question his impartiality, unless an ethics official authorises participation. Neither rule makes a spouse's consulting fee improper in itself.

Watchtower's engagement letters would show whether Jennifer Hegseth's contract overlapped the firm's Lockheed account. Any recusal memorandum or section 208 waiver issued to Hegseth would show whether he stood aside from Lockheed, Watchtower or America First Policy Institute matters. Her appointment papers for the military spouse commission would show whether she serves as a special government employee and whether she filed her own financial disclosure. The full 2025 annual report, with its endnotes, would show whether Hegseth gave any reason for dropping the books and the Fox plans. HarperCollins's royalty statements or any assignment of rights would show what became of the income from "Battle for the American Mind" and "The War on Warriors".