It's also convenient cover as

- Hegseth has been found to have surreptitiously installed a system to control his personal cell phone while in his otherwise locked-down Pentagon office;

- Hegseth's OP SEC bumblings and other violations have put the lives of military personnel at risk;

- Hegseth plausibly committed war crimes in the bombing of vessels off the coast of South America;

- Trump just pardoned a convicted drug kingpin;

- etc.