US Protection Secretary Hegseth’s Dealer Looked to Aquire Protection Fund Before Iran Assault, FT Reviews
March 30 (Reuters) – A dealer for U.S. Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth tried to invent a gargantuan investment in famous protection companies in the weeks leading as much as the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran, the Monetary Cases reported on Monday, citing three folks mindful of the topic.
Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell talked about on X the story was “fully fraudulent and fabricated” and demanded a retraction.
The FT file talked about Hegseth’s dealer at Morgan Stanley contacted BlackRock in February, about making a multimillion-greenback investment in the asset manager’s Protection Industrials Filled with life ETF, quickly earlier than the U.S. launched armed forces action in opposition to Tehran.
According to the FT file, the investment discussed by Hegseth’s dealer did no longer in the waste hasten forward because the fund, which launched in Might possibly presumably maybe even final 12 months, was no longer yet readily accessible for Morgan Stanley prospects to amass.
The FT file did no longer narrate how mighty discretion the dealer had to invent investments on Hegseth’s behalf, or whether Hegseth knew what the dealer was doing.
“Neither Secretary Hegseth nor any of his representatives approached BlackRock about any such investment,” Parnell talked about.
BlackRock declined to comment on the file, while Morgan Stanley did no longer presently reply to Reuters’ seek info from for comment.
The file on the investment are trying comes amid a wider scrutiny of trades made in financial and prediction markets earlier than U.S. President Donald Trump’s famous coverage choices.
These form of choices had been preceded by successfully-timed bets, leading some experts to elevate questions about whether info had in some blueprint leaked forward of time.
(Reporting by Akanksha Khushi in Bengaluru; Editing by Chris Reese and Stephen Coates)
Copyright 2026 Thomson Reuters.
