THE NARATIV — Wednesday, Dec 3, 2025

Pentagon Brass Distances Itself from Hegseth as War Crimes Pressure Mounts

Dec 03, 2025

∙ Paid

📍 FOUR STORIES TO WATCH

1. PENTAGON POINTS FINGER AT HEGSETH AND TRUMP

The military is running for cover. Pentagon spokesperson Kingsley Wilson made clear yesterday: the Caribbean strikes were “presidentially directed.” The chain of command “functions as it should.” The secretary and the president “are the ones directing these strikes.”

🎬 WATCH:
Dean Blundell
and
Zev Shalev
Shalev break down the Pentagon’s blame game

Translation: the brass is putting a vast amount daylight between themselves and what increasingly looks like a war crime.

This comes after Fox News archive footage resurfaced showing Hegseth bragging about watching the strike live: “We knew exactly who was in that boat. We knew exactly what they were doing.” The kind of thing you should not say on television while committing a war crime.

🎬 WATCH: Hegseth admits on Fox News he watched the strike live

Senator Wicker and both parties in Congress are now using the words “war crimes.” Britain has stopped sharing intelligence. And inside the Pentagon, officials are furious at the White House’s attempt to blame Admiral Bradley. Bradley intends to meet with lawmakers tomorrow to share what he knows.

2. CABINET MEETING FROM HELL

Yesterday’s cabinet meeting was peak banana republic. Kristi Noem congratulated Trump for “stopping all the hurricanes this year.” He said thank you. This is the same Noem who just admitted defying a federal court order on deportations—while under contempt inquiry.

Meanwhile, Trump ranted about drugs “poisoning America” while having pardoned the kingpin who bragged about “shoving drugs up the noses of gringos.”

3. KUSHNER IN MOSCOW: THE WITKOFF CONNECTION

Jared Kushner was in Moscow this week with Steve Witkoff and sanctioned oligarch Kirill Dmitriev. Olga Lautman traced Kushner’s Russian connections back to 2014-15: dinners with Abramovich, meetings with Vekselberg, buildings financed by Russian money, and that 2016 back channel request through Ambassador Kislyak.

Dmitriev wants to invest through Kushner’s Saudi fund. It’s a business deal at Ukraine’s expense.

4. EPSTEIN FILES: GRU LINKED TO EPSTEIN’S INNER CIRCLE

On last night’s show, Olga Lautman traced Svetlana Pozhidaeva—MGIMO graduate turned MC2 model turned Epstein assistant—to a GRU family.

“I went virtual hopping through cemeteries in Russia to find her grandfather. He was buried in the equivalent of Arlington Cemetery. High-level GRU. Her father signed a lease listing his job as GRU.”

Mission: infiltrate American AI research through Epstein’s modeling visa pipeline.

🎬 WATCH:
Olga Lautman
traced GRU family to Epstein’s inner circle

5. THE 9/11 CONNECTION

A lot of you are asking about the 9/11 comments from yesterday’s FiveStack and last night’s show with Ellie Leonard. Yes—there is absolutely a connection between the Epstein network and 9/11. The same characters. The same Saudi connections. MBS keeps popping up in the emails alongside Trump and Epstein.

This was originally meant to be Book 2 of The Greatest Heist. The current book was meant to be Book 3, but I got so excited about the JP Morgan material I moved it up. The middle chapter—the 9/11 chapter—is coming. It explains the Saudi involvement, the Russian mob connections, and why these same people keep appearing at every major crime of the last 40 years.