Hegseth’s broker tried to buy major arms fund before Iran strike

US defence secretary Pete Hegseth’s broker tried to invest in a defence fund weeks ahead of the US-Israeli attack on Iran. The Financial Times (FT) said three sources have corroborated this claim, which the Pentagon denies.

On 31 March, the FT reported the following.

Hegseth’s broker at Morgan Stanley contacted BlackRock in February about making a multimillion-dollar investment in the asset manager’s Defense Industrials Active ETF, the people said, shortly before the US launched military action against Tehran.

The inquiry on behalf of the high-profile potential client was flagged internally at BlackRock, according to the people familiar with the matter. BlackRock, Morgan Stanley and the Pentagon declined to comment.

Hegseth is a key architect of America’s illegal attack on Iran.

Initial, unprovoked offensive strikes on Iran were launched by the US and Israel on 28 February. Iran was offering concessions in negotiations at the time. The Pentagon has since stated there was no imminent threat from Iran. And the UN’s atomic watchdog, the IAEA, has said there is no evidence Iran was developing a nuclear weapon.

So far the Iranian government remains functional. The main US and Israeli achievement so far appears to be creating a global energy crisis after Iran predictably closed the vital oil channel in straits of Hormuz.

The FT said the purchase did not go ahead in the end:

The investment discussed by Hegseth’s broker did not ultimately go ahead as the fund, which launched in May last year, was not yet available for Morgan Stanley clients to buy.

Making a killing

The inquiry about buying into the fund was flagged because it was related to a “high-profile potential client.”

The FT explained the perverse nature of such funds, and their links to global arms giants—profiting from death.

According to BlackRock, the $3.2bn equity fund, which carries the ticker IDEF, pursues “growth opportunities by investing in companies that may benefit from increased government spending on defense and security amid geopolitical fragmentation and economic competition”.

The newspaper also reported:

Its largest holdings include defence conglomerates RTX, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, which count the US Department of Defense as their biggest customers, as well as data integration specialist Palantir.

The legendary US Marine Corps General turned war resister and whistleblower Smedley Butler (dubbed the Fighting Quaker) once said that war is a racket. That was in 1935, after Butler had tried to head off a fascist coup in the US. Then 91 years later, the fascists are in power, and, if these reports are true, they’re still looking to make a killing off the killing — at the expense of the people of Iran.

Featured image via the Canary