Pete Hegseth's top aide at the Pentagon allegedly told multiple colleagues a fabricated story about sneaking past the defense secretary's security detail to go out drinking, a tale that two sources say never happened but that the aide used to inflate his own closeness to the secretary, the New York Post reported.
Ricky Buria, 44, Hegseth's chief of staff at the Department of War, told at least two people separately in early 2025 that he and Hegseth, 45, donned disguises, "a hat and sunglasses" or something similar, and slipped away from the secretary's protective detail while Hegseth was staying at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Pentagon City. Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson flatly denied the account.
The denial was unequivocal. But the damage from the rumor itself, circulating inside the building and across the Trump administration, raises a different question: Why would the man running Hegseth's front office spread a story designed to make his boss look like he broke a public sobriety pledge?
The first source told the Post that Buria shared the tale inside a Pentagon office in late March or April. Buria described how he and Hegseth managed to leave the Ritz-Carlton undetected, though he did not name a specific bar or destination. The source said he initially wasn't sure what to make of it, then learned months later that Buria had been telling others the same thing.
That first source described the experience bluntly:
"My first impression of it was he was trying to figure out if I was going to tell other people. But then I come to find out a couple months later that he was running around telling people."
He added that the tale was "a weird way of him bragging" and "clearly part of this whole bizarre effort to make it seem like he was Pete's best friend and confidant."
The second source said the topic came up during an April flight, when Buria mentioned that nearly three bottles of Macallan whisky had been consumed, though Buria did not specify by whom. Hegseth has operated on a demanding travel schedule, including secret trips to active military zones, making the security implications of the alleged outing all the more serious, if it had actually occurred.
The second source recounted Buria's words directly: "I protect him, don't worry." Buria also claimed the disguise routine worked in Tennessee as well, saying "it was kind of amazing that nobody recognized them."
When confronted, Buria's story shifted. The second source said that once "the temperature was turning up," Buria claimed he was "just f***ing around."
The stakes of Buria's story were never trivial. Ahead of his January Senate confirmation, Hegseth publicly vowed not to drink "a drop of alcohol," promising the nation would have "fully dialed-in Pete" during times of crisis. That pledge became a centerpiece of his confirmation defense.
Wilson, the Pentagon press secretary, told the Post the allegation was baseless:
"This is false, and the Department is not going to entertain Washington gossip while we are focused on major military operations abroad."
The first source agreed the outing never took place, saying flatly: "This did not happen. But nonetheless, he told people it happened." His explanation was pointed, Buria told the story "as a way to try and make it seem like he was really close to Hegseth and possibly had leverage over him."
There is no proof the alleged escape from the Ritz-Carlton ever occurred. Hegseth travels with a security detail, and no corroborating evidence has surfaced. The question is not whether Hegseth broke his pledge. The question is why his own chief of staff would fabricate a story suggesting he did.
Buria's path to one of the most powerful staff positions in the defense establishment is itself a story of unusual ascent. He rose from junior military aide to Hegseth's de facto chief of staff, with his friendship deepening with both Hegseth and his wife, Jennifer. Hegseth reportedly insisted Buria was essential to his operation.
But the White House had reservations. Last year, it blocked Buria from officially becoming chief of staff over concerns about his ideological alignment with the administration. Republican tensions around Hegseth's leadership have surfaced repeatedly, and Buria's case added another layer of friction between the Pentagon and the West Wing.
Trump ultimately relented at Hegseth's urging and allowed Buria's formal elevation in December.
The ideological concerns were not abstract. Fellow Pentagon aides reportedly heard Buria disparage Trump's use of the military along the southern border and call Vice President JD Vance a "crazy" isolationist. The Post also noted that Buria openly dreamed of a political future as a Democrat in Florida.
For an administration that has grown more disciplined about discouraging leaks and punishing those responsible, Buria's conduct stands out. Many people close to or inside the Trump administration believe he was attempting to catch leakers by seeding false stories and watching where they surfaced. If true, that would make the drinking tale a counterintelligence exercise run by a chief of staff against his own colleagues, an extraordinary step that, whatever its intent, generated exactly the kind of distraction it was supposedly designed to prevent.
The drinking story was not Buria's only controversy. The New York Times reported last week that Buria had a "heated exchange" with Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, a friend and former law school classmate of Vance, over a promotion selection. Hegseth has been at the center of consequential military decisions, and the internal friction around his staff has complicated the Pentagon's ability to execute them cleanly.
Driscoll had selected Maj. Gen. Antoinette R. Gant for promotion to command of the Military District of Washington. Buria reportedly told Driscoll that Trump would not want to stand next to a Black woman at events. Driscoll pushed back, telling Buria "the president is not a racist or sexist," and elevated the dispute to the White House. Gant got the promotion.
That episode, combined with the fabricated drinking story, paints a picture of a chief of staff whose conduct consistently generated conflict rather than resolving it. Hegseth has pushed back publicly against press narratives about his leadership, but the problems described here originated inside his own office.
The first source laid out the stakes in terms that deserve attention from anyone who cares about the functioning of the defense establishment:
"Ricky occupies one of the most important positions in the Department of War. He is responsible not just for helping run the secretary's front office but for driving coordination of critical activities across the department and the rest of the administration."
That same source continued: "Behavior like this only creates distractions for the department as it tries to execute multiple no-fail military operations. From day one, both as a military aide and then as a chief of staff, Ricky has consistently heightened the level of drama, paranoia and infighting in the secretary's office."
Whether Buria was freelancing for personal leverage, running an unauthorized leak-detection scheme, or simply telling tall tales to impress colleagues, the result was the same: a manufactured story that undercut the secretary's credibility and fed a media environment already hostile to Hegseth's tenure. At a moment when the administration faces serious defense-policy debates on multiple fronts, the last thing the Pentagon needs is a chief of staff who generates friendly fire.
The Pentagon denied the drinking story. Two sources who heard it firsthand say it was fabricated. The open question is not what Hegseth did, it's what his own right-hand man was doing, and why Hegseth let him stay long enough to do it.
Washington has no shortage of people who mistake proximity to power for power itself. The difference is that most of them don't sit in the chief of staff's chair at the Department of War while American troops are deployed abroad.
