National Guard Master Sergeant DeRicko Gaither sent up a warning on the evening of Jan. 14, 2021, about Pete Hegseth, who on Tuesday became President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for defense secretary.
"This information is quite disturbing, sir," he wrote to Maj. Gen. William Walker, the commanding general of the Washington, D.C., National Guard, who was helping bolster security in the U.S. capital for Joe Biden's presidential inauguration on Jan. 20.
Hegseth, Gaither wrote, had a worrying tattoo on his bicep with the inscription "Deus Vult." A search online suggested to him it was a Christian expression associated with rightwing extremism. "Deus Vult" is a Latin phrase meaning "God Wills It," a rallying cry for Christian crusaders in the Middle Ages.
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