Pete Hegseth’s Guard Left the Army After the Beating of a Civilian

When Pete Hegseth visited senators on Capitol Hill this month in an effort to show that he has the qualifications and judgment to lead the Defense Department, he was escorted by a security guard with a dark episode in his past.

The guard, a former Army Special Forces master sergeant named John Jacob Hasenbein, left the military after a 2019 training event in which witnesses said he beat a civilian role player — kicking him, punching him and leaving him hogtied in a pool of his own blood.

Mr. Hegseth’s choice of Mr. Hasenbein as a security escort is the latest instance in which he has stood by soldiers accused of crimes. He has repeatedly criticized military leaders as being too “woke” and waging a “war on warriors.”

In this case, Timothy Parlatore, Mr. Hegseth’s lawyer, said Mr. Hasenbein was the “victim of unjust treatment by a broken military justice system,” and Mr. Hegseth was proud to work with him. He added, “It is stories like his that demonstrate the change needed in the Department of Defense.”

The Army charged Mr. Hasenbein with aggravated assault and reckless endangerment. A military jury found him guilty of the assault charge in a court-martial in 2020, according to Army records. But the judge overseeing the case declared a mistrial after learning that a friend of Mr. Hasenbein had been talking to a juror throughout the trial, court records show. The Army did not retry the case.

“This guy has real anger issues,” Ahmed Altameemi, the man whom Mr. Hasenbein was charged with assaulting, said in an interview. “He is not a safe man. I don’t know why they gave him this position. Don’t they do any background checks?”