{"id":5346,"date":"2026-08-26T07:35:43","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T07:35:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=5346"},"modified":"2026-08-26T07:35:43","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T07:35:43","slug":"chaos-for-trump-after-friendly-influencer-mistakes-leak-for-treason-trap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=5346","title":{"rendered":"Chaos for Trump after friendly influencer mistakes leak for ‘treason trap’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

President Donald Trump\u2019s Pentagon is already under fire for waging an expensive war against Iran and blowing a $1 trillion hole in the US budget while doing so. Yet according to a recent analysis by a conservative commentator, Trump\u2019s Pentagon has another problem \u2014 namely, recruiting a \u201cdunce\u201d to secretly spread its propaganda.<\/p>\n

Read more NYT pounds the Supreme Court over Trump double standard<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cPro-Trump internet sleuth Jennica Pounds\u2014better known as \u2018Data Republican\u2019 to her nearly one million followers on X\u2014made a grim announcement on Friday,\u201d wrote The Bulwark’s Will Sommer on Monday. \u201cDeep-state operatives embedded within the Trump administration had tried to entrap her into committing treason.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet while Pounds depicted her predicament as that of an innocent journalist being manipulated by the so-called \u201cDeep State,\u201d Sommer argued that there is a more prosaic explanation for what happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Pounds\u2019s portentous telling, an unnamed official\u2014soon after revealed to be Sarah B. Rogers, the undersecretary for public diplomacy at the State Department\u2014had offered to leak her government documents about Cuba to publish as an \u2018exclusive,\u2019\u201d Pounds wrote. \u201cWhile Pounds was initially enthusiastic, markings on the documents prompted her to panic that she was being set up. Had she published the documents, Pounds felt, she would\u2019ve exposed herself to criminal prosecution. She took the news of her supposed entrapment directly to her audience.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added, \u201cThe idea that Trump administration officials would conspire to send Pounds to prison is bizarre on its face. After all, Pounds is an administration favorite. Her tweets claiming to have data to justify Elon Musk\u2019s cuts aimed at USAID and other government agencies made her an out-of-nowhere star during the DOGE era, even though she didn\u2019t seem to have a solid grasp of how government spending actually worked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sommer then juxtaposed Pounds\u2019 account with Rogers\u2019, which he viewed as more credible \u2014 but also ominous in its own way.<\/p>\n

Read more Natalie Harp is close to Trump \u2014 but not for the reason you think<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018lol, these are my text messages and documents,\u2019 Rogers wrote on X to Pounds, seemingly amused,” Sommer wrote. “\u2018The \u2018markings\u2019 are FOIA redactions required even for voluntary disclosure. To prove this isn\u2019t a \u2018trap,\u2019 I will happily disclose the documents myself.\u2019 She did so, defusing the situation by basically sacrificing her attempt at an orchestrated leak.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sommer added, \u201cWhile this drama is delicious on its own merits, it highlights a real problem facing the Trump administration: a lack of talented media figures who can handle even the basic function of laundering the administration\u2019s message.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately the columnist concluded, \u201cPounds\u2019s [sic] bumbling drew a sigh from conservative commentators who have yearned since the days of Andrew Breitbart for a more professional Republican journalistic class. At the same time, far-right figures who love Rogers for her work boosting European extremists and far-right Twitter personalities hustled to her defense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier on Monday, AP Pentagon reporter Konstantin Toropin confirmed on behalf of the Defense Department that \u201cMs. Pounds serves at the Department of War as a Special Government Employee.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Trump\u2019s midterm plan is to do exactly what Democrats want<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A high-ranking State Department official’s attempt to orchestrate a friendly press leak backfires spectacularly when a pro-Trump influencer mistakes routine paperwork for a treason trap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nChaos for Trump after friendly influencer mistakes leak for 'treason trap' - Next Address America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=5346\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Chaos for Trump after friendly influencer mistakes leak for 'treason trap' - 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