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An employee of West Point said in December that Pete Heget had not applied to the Military Academy.
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Heget proved that he was accepted, causing attacks by Republicans and calls for investigation.
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Internal emails released on Bi Show, employees had to ask “database out of use” to find the record.
The recently published West Point Records has shedd a new light on how exactly December Snafu over Pete Heget’s recognition at the prestigious Military Academy happened.
On the morning of December 11, Heget wrote to X that the investigative news website Propublica was about to hold a “conscious” story, saying that it was not accepted into the US Military Academy, where many of the US officers were trained.
Propublica denied Heget’s claim, saying that he simply asked for a heget to answer a statement from a public affairs officer of West Point, who said on the news trip that heget had not even applied, even less accepted.
At that time, Heget and his allies used the incident to blame West Point and the media. The new records show that the error is the West Point, which ignores to review the old archive of the thousands of candidates at the Academy before the dispute.
The internal emails published on Business Insider under the Freedom of Information Act have shown that West Point employees are exchanging emails on December 10 for Heget’s claim that they have been admitted after he submitted a letter as evidence.
“See what they provided now ??” Theresa Brinkrhoff, an employee of public matters, writes to another West Point employee.
In another topic for an email employee whose name is edited, he wrote: “Anyone can generate a letter of acceptance … does not mean his or her legitimate.”
“Very true,” Brinkerhof replied.
By the afternoon of the 10th West Point employees, they seemed to realize their mistake. “He’s there,” an employee whose name is edited in an email. “This is in an old archived table,” the man said, introducing order to the search request language to demonstrate how the recording entry can be found.
“The record shows that he has refused the offer,” the employee wrote.
Heget eventually went to Princeton, where he studied politics, played basketball and joined the reserve officers’ training corps. He served in the National Army Guard after graduation and moved to conservative activism and media jobs.
Hegt was a magnet of criticism in his six months as Minister of Defense. His nomination to lead the Pentagon seemed uncertain last December against the backdrop of alcohol abuse and abuse of women. Heget denied allegations and promised to stop drinking.
Terrence Kelly, head of the West Point Communication Service, apologized that he crucified the afternoon of the 10th. “My sincere apologies for the wrong information,” he writes. “It was careless.”
Heget obviously did not receive the note. He published at 8:10 the next day that Propublica would have a false story.
Kelly told her colleagues on December 11 that it is important for them to receive a “formal word” to cite that heget tells the truth. “Confirmation of Heget’s claim probably kills every interest that Propublica has in history, but the longer we slow down the reaction, the greater the likelihood of it is a story,” he writes.
In a short email to Propublica, which has never managed a history of hegt’s recognition, he called Flub a “honest mistake”.
By the afternoon of the 11th West Point press, she had received inquiries about the post of heget from eight other media. On the same day, Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas asked the school’s management to look at how the statement was made.
“The Academy takes this situation seriously and apologizes for this administrative mistake,” West Point told the media.
“After launching information on an inaccurate reception in December last December, West Point applied additional guidance on the correct review and release of any information from outsiders,” Kelly, a West Point spokesman, told BI. “We are sorry for the mistake and we are committed to ensuring that this is not repeated.”
“Reporters are doing their job by asking difficult questions to people in power, which is exactly what happened here,” said a spokesman for Propublica. “Responsible news organizations publish what they can check, so we have not published a story after Mr. Heget has provided documentation that adjusts the statements of West Point.”
Pentagon and cotton did not respond to requests for comment.
Read the original Business Insider article