A week after Democratic lawmakers demanded answers, Pentagon officials are staying tight-lipped about a six-figure taxpayer-funded effort to upgrade the soon-to-be home of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth while the secretary himself has taken to attacking reporters who cover the story.
What they have confirmed is that the secretary of defense will follow a 2008 law and pay rent, though the figure appears to be well below market value for housing in the Washington, D.C., area.
Hegseth is eyeing a move into military family housing at Fort McNair, a historic Army installation tucked away in southwest D.C., where the Anacostia and Potomac rivers meet. But before he moves in, at least $137,000 in repairs have been requested — among them, a $50,000 paint job. Who initiated the request remains murky, but as head of the Pentagon, Hegseth ultimately has the final say on anything that happens in the department.
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The cost breakdown has raised eyebrows, particularly since it comes at a time when other officials in the Trump administration — namely, Elon Musk — have been gutting government contracts and firing swaths of federal employees in the name of cost savings. Military families have also struggled for years to get repairs made to base housing, an issue that has triggered multiple congressional inquiries.
The news of the housing costs broke earlier this month when a pair of Democratic lawmakers — Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida and Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut — released a letter demanding more details. The military services are required to notify Congress when undertaking significant expenditures on renovations.
Since then, Military.com has spoken with half a dozen officials to try and better understand the nature of the repairs and upgrades, with no success. Officials within the secretary’s office were reluctant to even confirm the repair request existed.
The Pentagon’s acting spokesman, John Ullyot, released a statement earlier this week saying that “any repairs, if they in fact occurred, were initiated by the Department of Defense, not by Secretary Hegseth,” but declined to share what those repairs are and who actually made the request.
After the secretary’s office directed Military.com to the Army, an official for the service, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Wednesday that the service ordered the upgrades since it “performs routine maintenance and repairs to all vacant government-owned residences it controls before they are occupied by a new tenant, regardless of the new tenant’s rank or position,” and added that the historic 100-year-old home Hegseth is planning to move into has a greater cost to maintain, given its age. It was unclear why the Army official would need anonymity to discuss who ordered the renovation.
When Military.com asked for details of what work was done, the Army official directed questions back to the secretary’s office which, a few days later, provided a nearly identical statement attributed to another anonymous official on Friday. It was also unclear why a Pentagon official would need anonymity to discuss housing renovations.
Meanwhile, Hegeseth himself has taken to criticizing reports about the repairs on his home on social media, by claiming that the repairs were initiated by the department he now oversees and not him personally while mocking the Fox News reporter who covers the Pentagon and posted on social media about the lawmakers’ letter.
In last week’s letter, the two lawmakers also pressed Hegseth on whether there were any available homes that require less expensive updates, whether other secretaries who lived in military housing had costly renovations done before they moved in, and why the notification described the repainting as an “emergency.”
One question that the pair of Democratic lawmakers had that the secretary’s office was able to answer was that Hegseth is committed to paying rent on the property.
A defense official confirmed to Military.com that Hegseth will pay $4,655.70 per month for calendar year 2025 to stay at the property.
Under a 2008 law, a defense secretary who lives in military housing is required to pay rent that is equivalent to 105% of the Basic Allowance for Housing rate for a four-star general with dependents assigned to the same base.
The law was passed by Congress in response to concerns about cost disparities for civilians and generals that arose when then-Secretary Bob Gates was living in military housing.
Comparing the rate Hegseth will pay to rental averages in Washington, D.C., it appears that he is getting a good deal. According to the real estate website Zillow.com, a four-bedroom house rental in Washington, D.C., has an average rent of $5,624.
Gates paid the full market value to rent a Navy house, over $6,500 — or more than double what the BAH rate for a general was at the time, Stars and Stripes reported in 2008. Arguing that having a secretary living in military housing was more cost effective than outfitting a private residency with the necessary security and communications equipment, the Pentagon asked Congress to amend the law so that a secretary’s rent would be comparable to what a general pays.
In 2018, during the first Trump administration, then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis lived in the same Navy house Gates once rented, according to The New York Times. Mattis’ rent was $3,383.10, according to the Times.
In addition to dictating the rental rate, the law calls for the secretary to consider whether there are “any available military housing units that are already substantially equipped for executive communications and security” when choosing which house to live in.
The law also requires the rent to be deposited into a special account to be used for “maintenance, protection, alteration, repair, improvement or restoration” of the house.
It is not clear why the Pentagon would not discuss or confirm any of these legally mandated improvements and upgrades.
Related: Hegseth Wants $50,000 for ‘Emergency’ Paint Job to Move into Military Family Housing, Lawmakers Say