On Tuesday, Donald Trump announced Pete Hegseth, a Fox News commentator who saw active duty in the Minnesota National Guard, as his choice for secretary of defense.

According to CBS News reporter Jim LaPorta, Hegseth was among the National Guard members ordered to withdraw from Joe Biden’s inauguration.

Hegseth served in both Iraq and Afghanistan during his time as a National Guard officer, and announced in 2012 that he was running in the Republican primary for a U.S. Senate seat in Minnesota, although he dropped out before voting began. He published earlier this year The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free.

In a statement on social media, Trump said: “Pete spent his life as a warrior for the troops and for the country. Pete is tough, smart and a true believer in America First.”

Why wasn’t Pete Hegseth allowed to attend Biden’s inauguration?

During an appearance on a podcast hosted by Shawn Ryan, a former Navy Seal and CIA contractor, Hegseth claimed he was supposed to help monitor Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential inauguration but was ordered to resign because he had an ‘extremist’ tattoo.

He said: “I was deemed an extremist because of a tattoo by my National Guard unit in Washington DC and my orders were revoked to guard Biden’s inauguration…

“My commander called me a day earlier lukewarm and said to Major: you can just resign. We don’t need you, we are good. I thought, what do you mean, everyone is there. He said no no no… he could don’t tell me.”

Hegseth added that in writing his book he “contacted someone in the unit who could confirm it with 99.9 percent certainty, because he was at the meetings and on the emails, no, someone inside the DC Guard manipulated your social media, found a tattoo, used it as an excuse to call you a white nationalist and an extremist, and you were specifically named to guard the inauguration because you were considered a potential threat was considered.

Newsweek contacted the Minnesota National Guard, Donald Trump’s presidential campaign team and Pete Hegseth via Fox News’ press office on Wednesday for comment by email outside of regular business hours.

Members of the National Guard tied to extremist statements

In January 2021, The Associated Press reported that twelve National Guard members had been removed from guarding Biden’s inauguration after being linked to “right-wing militias” or “posting extremist views online.”

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, CBS News reporter Jim LaPorta said one of these twelve National Guard members was Hegseth.

The Pentagon authorized the deployment of up to 25,000 National Guard troops to protect Biden’s inauguration on January 20. It followed the riot on Capitol Hill on January 6, in which hundreds of Trump supporters stormed Congress in an attempt to prevent Biden’s election victory from being ratified. In the ensuing violence, a Trump supporter was shot dead and dozens of police officers were injured.

What is Pete Hegseth’s tattoo?

During his appearance on Ryan’s podcast, Hegseth showed off the tattoo that he claimed led to him being removed from guarding the 2020 presidential inauguration, describing it as the “Jerusalem cross tattoo, which is just a Christian symbol.”

The Jerusalem Cross has one large cross, symbolizing the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, with an additional smaller cross in each quadrant, making a total of four smaller crosses. Each cross has a square design, resembles a plus sign, and extends a little further at the end of each arm. Hegseth’s Jerusalem Cross tattoo is on his chest.

After Jerusalem was captured from the Islamic Fatimid Caliphate during the First Crusade in 1099, an independent Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem was established, which would last almost 200 years before being conquered by Muslim armies. The Jerusalem Cross was adopted as a symbol of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, one of four independent states carved out of Palestine, Lebanon and Syria by Christian fighters after the First Crusade.

In recent years, some right-wing nationalist groups have adopted Crusader imagery, including images of Knights Templar and the Crusaders slogan Deus fillsLatin for ‘God wills it’.