President Donald Trump's Pentagon is already under fire for waging an expensive war against Iran and blowing a $1 trillion hole in the US budget in the process. Against that backdrop, a new dispute over a proposed leak to a pro-Trump online figure has become another example of how closely the administration's message operation is tied to the personalities it elevates online.

"Pro-Trump internet sleuth Jennica Pounds—better known as 'Data Republican' to her nearly one million followers on X—made a grim announcement on Friday," The Bulwark's Will Sommer wrote on Monday. "Deep-state operatives embedded within the Trump administration had tried to entrap her into committing treason."

While Pounds depicted her predicament as that of an innocent journalist being manipulated by the so-called "Deep State," Sommer argued that a more prosaic explanation exists for what happened.

"In Pounds's portentous telling, an unnamed official—soon after revealed to be Sarah B. Rogers, the undersecretary for public diplomacy at the State Department—had offered to leak her government documents about Cuba to publish as an 'exclusive,'" Sommer reported. "While 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've exposed herself to criminal prosecution. She took the news of her supposed entrapment directly to her audience."

He continued: "The 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's cuts aimed at USAID and other government agencies made her an out-of-nowhere star during the DOGE era, even though she didn't seem to have a solid grasp of how government spending actually worked."

Sommer then juxtaposed Pounds's account with Rogers's, which he viewed as more credible—but also revealing in another way.

"'lol, these are my text messages and documents,' Rogers wrote on X to Pounds, seemingly amused," Sommer wrote. "'The "markings" are FOIA redactions required even for voluntary disclosure. To prove this isn't a "trap," I will happily disclose the documents myself.' She did so, defusing the situation by basically sacrificing her attempt at an orchestrated leak."

Sommer added: "While 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's message."

The columnist ultimately concluded: "Pounds's 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."

Earlier on Monday, AP Pentagon reporter Konstantin Toropin confirmed on behalf of the Defense Department that "Ms. Pounds serves at the Department of War as a Special Government Employee."