The Department of Defense is investigating the head of the U.S. Special Operations Command’s office of diversity and inclusion for posting anti-Trump content to social media.
The Pentagon announced last week that it had hired Richard Torres-Estrada to serve as USSOCOM’s head of diversity.
“USSOCOM welcomes our new Chief of Diversity & Inclusion, Mr. Richard Torres-Estrada. We look forward to his contribution in enhancing the capabilities and effectiveness of #SOF through diversity of talent, helping us recruit the best of the best,” USSOCOM posted on Thursday.
The announcement sparked backlash online as old social media posts from Torres-Estrada’s Facebook page began circulating online. One post from June 2020 featured side-by-side photos of former President Donald Trump holding up a Bible outside of St. John’s Church in Washington, D.C., and a doctored image of Adolf Hitler made to look as if he is holding up a Bible.
Torres-Estrada captioned the post, “Here I leave this and slowly retire (to continue working from home)…”
A spokesman for USSOCOM confirmed to The Daily Caller News Foundation on Sunday that the Pentagon had opened up an investigation into Torres-Estrada over his social media posts.
“We are aware of the situation, and the command has initiated an investigation,” USSOCOM spokesman Ken McGraw said. USSOCOM did not immediately return a request for comment from The Daily Wire.
Since President Joe Biden took over command of the military, the U.S. armed forces have increasingly prioritized diversity and inclusion as part of military readiness. Earlier this month, military officials attacked Fox News host Tucker Carlson after the conservative commentator questioned the military’s priorities for championing a new flight suit for pregnant women. Carlson’s critique sparked blowback from the leadership of the Pentagon. As The Daily Wire reported:
Fox News host Tucker Carlson took flak from the Pentagon on Thursday for warning that the military worries too much about gender and diversity in the armed forces while China increasingly asserts its dominance in the world.
John Kirby, the press secretary for the Department of Defense, accused Carlson of “[using] his show to denigrate the contributions of women in the military and to say the Chinese military is catching up to the U.S. military because it does not allow women to serve in the percentage the United States does,” according to a story from DoD News, titled “Press Secretary Smites Fox Host That Dissed Diversity in U.S. Military.”
The U.S. Marines launched an investigation after the official Twitter account for the U.S. The II Marine Expeditionary Force Information Group posted several tweets attacking Carlson and deriding him as a “boomer” over his remarks. As The Daily Wire reported:
“What it looks like in today’s armed forces @TuckerCarlson. Get right before you get left, boomer,” the II MEF IG posted along with a photo of a female soldier carrying another, according to The Washington Examiner. In another post responding to a critical Twitter user, the unit’s official account said, “come back when you’ve served and been pregnant.”
The U.S. Marine Corps later walked back the posts after taking heat for launching “political attacks” against a civilian and media figure.
“The unit is currently reviewing their internal procedures for social media posts. While the post was intended to show support for women in the military, it was not executed according to the standards of decorum expected on the Marine Corps’ social media platforms,” a spokesperson for the Marines told the Examiner.