{"id":47476,"date":"2026-04-03T11:37:56","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T18:37:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=47476"},"modified":"2026-04-03T11:37:59","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T18:37:59","slug":"warren-leads-demand-for-probe-into-hegseths-reported-efforts-to-profit-from-iran-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2026\/04\/03\/warren-leads-demand-for-probe-into-hegseths-reported-efforts-to-profit-from-iran-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Warren Leads Demand for Probe Into Hegseth\u2019s Reported Efforts to Profit From Iran War"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"US-ISRAEL-IRAN-WAR-HEGSETH\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth looks on alongside Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine during a press briefing at the Pentagon in Washington, DC, on March 31, 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0(Photo by Oliver Contreras\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democratic lawmakers said if reports of Hegseth attempting to buy defense stock weeks before the war are true, it \u201cwould be a profound conflict of interest\u201d and a \u201cbetrayal of the nation paying the price for this war.\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Stephen Prager<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apr 02, 2026 (CommonDreams.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senate Democrats are pushing for an investigation into US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth following a report<\/a> that he attempted to make a \u201cbig investment\u201d in weapons stock just weeks before President Donald Trump<\/a> launched an aggressive war against Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee\u2014Sens. Elizabeth Warren<\/a> (D-Mass.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) were joined by Sens. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Jeff Merkley<\/a> to send<\/a> Hegseth a letter on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RECOMMENDED…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Pentagon<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Hegseth Broker Reportedly Tried to Make \u2018Big Investment\u2019 in Weapons Stocks Just Before Iran War<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Pete<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Pete Hegseth Lambasts \u2018Ungrateful\u2019 Allies, Press for Response to Deeply Unpopular Iran War<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

They told the secretary that his reported attempt to broker the deal \u201cwould be a profound conflict of interest and a potential violation of your federal ethics agreement\u2014and betrayal of the nation paying the price for this war and the troops you are sending into harm\u2019s way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Financial Times reported<\/a> earlier this week that Hegseth\u2019s \u201cbroker at Morgan Stanley<\/a> contacted BlackRock<\/a> in February about making a multimillion-dollar investment in the asset manager\u2019s Defense Industrials Active ETF… shortly before the US launched military action against Tehran.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the purchase was reportedly never made because the massive bundle of stocks was not available to Morgan Stanley clients at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Pentagon<\/a> spokesperson has also denied the story, calling it \u201centirely false and fabricated\u201d and claiming that neither Hegseth nor any of his representatives ever approached BlackRock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, as the lawmakers noted, FT reported that the inquiry was significant enough for BlackRock to flag it internally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

X post: https:\/\/x.com\/SenWarren\/status\/2039699183096004884?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2039699183096004884%7Ctwgr%5E34b6eea9944edf8a393fc42b25332def8e8a185f%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fhegseth-military-stock-investigation<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hegseth and other Pentagon officials confirmed by the Senate are prohibited by law from owning or purchasing publicly traded stock in the 10 companies that have received the largest Defense Department contracts over the past five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the fund held stocks in several of these companies, including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Huntington Ingalls, Boeing<\/a>, RTX Corporation, and L3Harris Technologies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reports of the proposed deal by Hegseth\u2019s broker come as the Trump administration<\/a> has faced other accusations<\/a> of trading on insider information about the president\u2019s next moves to win big on prediction market services. Platforms like Polymarket have seen bettors take home monster winnings by placing wagers predicting major military actions in Venezuela<\/a> and Iran<\/a> just hours before Trump launched them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lawmakers noted that while the war is costing<\/a> American taxpayers more than $1 billion per day and has saddled Americans with soaring gas prices, it has proven highly lucrative<\/a> for major defense contractors, whose stocks jumped significantly in the days after the war was launched, even as the rest of the market took a tumble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trump administration<\/a> is currently demanding another $200 billion to prosecute the war on top of a $1.5 trillion budget<\/a> request to fund the Defense Department, which the lawmakers said would likely result in these companies\u2019 profits and stock prices continuing to climb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US-Israeli war against Iran, launched on February 28, has been condemned<\/a> as illegal by many international law<\/a> experts and human rights<\/a> groups, who have accused<\/a> the US of violating the UN Charter and committing war crimes<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to a report<\/a> on Wednesday from the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), a US-based human rights monitor for Iran, more than 1,600 civilians have been killed since the war began, including 244 children<\/a>. At least 13 US troops have also been killed since the conflict broke out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lawmakers told Hegseth regarding his reported investment attempt: \u201cIf this report is accurate, it would appear to represent an appalling effort to profit off of your knowledge of the president\u2019s plans for war.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephen Prager<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephen Prager is a staff writer for Common Dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full Bio ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth looks on alongside Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine during a press briefing at the Pentagon in Washington, DC, on March 31, 2026. \u00a0(Photo by Oliver Contreras\/AFP via Getty Images) Democratic lawmakers said if reports of Hegseth attempting to buy… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47476"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47476"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47477,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47476\/revisions\/47477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}