A top aide to Pete Hegseth spread a rumor that the defense secretary’s drinking habits followed him to the Pentagon, a new report alleges.
Hegseth, whose ex-wife confided in the FBI that he “drinks more often than he doesn’t” and whose former Fox colleagues said he reeked of alcohol before going on air, promised to cut off all booze ahead of his Senate confirmation, which required a Vice President JD Vance tiebreaker.
That made Hegseth’s alleged drinking problem the perfect way to weed out leakers—at least in the eyes of Hegseth’s chief of staff, Ricky Buria, sources tell the New York Post.
Buria reportedly told several Pentagon staffers he and Hegseth donned disguises so they could go on a drunken bender last year, breaking the secretary’s vow of abstinence.
The motive for Buria’s story, supposedly a tall tale, was to see whether the recipients would leak it to the press, sources told the tabloid. Buria’s alleged ploy came at a time when Hegseth was cracking down on leakers.
Buria told colleagues that he and Hegseth slipped past his security detail when the latter was staying at the Ritz-Carlton in Pentagon City before his Washington home was ready, sources said. The paper did not describe the supposed disguise Hegseth wore or the bar they went to.
Buria is a Biden administration holdover who became Hegseth’s chief of staff in December. The White House had blocked his promotion for months over his past criticism of President Donald Trump and Vance.
However, a source tells the Post that the 44-year-old Buria was planting a fake story about Hegseth, 45, as early as last spring, in late March or April. The source reportedly said they were skeptical of Buria’s motives.
“My first impression of it was he was trying to figure out if I was going to tell other people,” the source said. “But then I come to find out a couple months later that he was running around telling people.”
The insider wondered if it was an attempt by Buria to appear as a close confidant of Hegseth.
“I was talking to [another Pentagon official] and I said, ‘This is f-----g crazy. Ricky is telling people he put on disguises and went out drinking with the secretary,’” the source recalled.
The Post reports that the other official responded, “‘Yeah he was telling a lot of people this.’”
The insider claims the drinking session did not happen, though it is unclear how they can be so sure. The source said that, in addition to making it look like he was close to the Pentagon chief, it may also have been a ploy to show that he had “leverage” over him.
The Post cited “several additional sources familiar with Buria” who said the move was designed to snare leakers.
One source said that Buria’s propensity for drama destabilizes the U.S. Military, while others added that the drinking tale was downright dangerous.
“Behavior like this only creates distractions for the department as it tries to execute multiple no-fail military operations,” a source told the Post. “From day one, both as a military aide and then as a chief of staff, Ricky has consistently heightened the level of drama, paranoia, and infighting in the secretary’s office.”
Buria allegedly referenced Hegseth drinking whisky on a flight in April last year. “I protect him, don’t worry,” the chief of staff is said to have uttered after discovering three bottles of hard booze.
He then reportedly re-told the Ritz-Carlton story, offering more details about the disguises used.
“He made a mention that when [Hegseth] was staying at the Ritz before [his DC] house was ready but then also once in Tennessee that ‘a hat and sunglasses,’ or something to that effect, basically is all you need to be able to sneak out and that it was kind of amazing that nobody recognized them,” the source said.
They continued, “[Buria] said, ‘Yeah, hey look, I’m just there to make sure he’s protected and he doesn’t get in any sort of trouble and people don’t recognize him. But yeah, we have to sneak out.’”
Two enraged officials reportedly grilled Buria on why he would cover for Hegseth in this instance, given that he had made a pledge to avoid alcohol. “Ricky’s immediate response there was he was just f-----g around,” the source added.
Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson told The Daily Beast: “This is false, and the Department is not going to entertain Washington gossip while we are focused on major military operations abroad.”
Buria also made headlines last week. He informed a senior Army official that Trump would not want to stand next to a Black female officer at military events, according to The New York Times. He was blasting the promotion of Maj. Gen. Antoinette Gant to lead the Military District of Washington, sources told the paper.
