Pentagon Aide Terminated After Boasting About Conspiring With Retired Generals To Stop Trump

A contractor embedded in one of the Pentagon’s highest offices has been terminated from his firm, Booz Allen Hamilton, after boasting to an undercover journalist that he worked with retired generals to try to stop Donald Trump, who he viewed as a “sociopathic narcissist,” from winning the presidency.

O’Keefe Media Group caught Jamie Mannina boasting to a young woman that he worked for Hillary Clinton in the Senate and the State Department before joining the FBI to hunt Russian spies because he believed Russia was to blame for Trump winning the 2016 election. From there, he joined government contractor Booz Allen, and the Pentagon embedded the contractor into its inner sanctum.

Mannina, who appeared to believe he was on a date with a younger woman, said if Kamala Harris had won the presidency, he would have been given a “pretty big job.” Even though Trump won, he said he would “be fine” and continue serving as a “special advisor to the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon.”

“Over most of the year, since this spring, I was working with these retired generals, retired ambassadors, in this organization, this nonprofit called National Security Leaders for America. And what we were doing was we were trying to explain to the American people the national security consequences of another Trump presidency” and “defeat Donald Trump,” he said.

BREAKING VIDEO: Top Pentagon Advisor Reveals On Hidden Camera Conversation “with a Couple of Retired Generals to Explore What We Can Do” to ‘Protect People from Trump’

Confirms Secret Meetings regarding AI: “That is sensitive information… We’re going to have to keep it between… pic.twitter.com/Ry2zAMW3rn

— James O’Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) January 15, 2025

He said he ghost-wrote more than 100 anti-Trump op-eds for the retired generals. ”I was literally working day and night, nonstop. So ultimately when he won I was really sad, really depressed, not only in terms of mission failure but of course i was hoping to advance my career. Had [Harris] won I would have gotten a pretty big job,” he said.

Mannina also disparaged Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, and said he was continuing to work with retired generals to restrict Trump’s actions as president. “I’m having a meeting in fact tomorrow about it,” he said.

On one date with the undercover journalist, Mannina said that the next day he would be personally presenting to the chiefs of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force, in a meeting led by General CQ Brown, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He said the topic was artificial intelligence and the need to share information with other countries “because we need to fight together.” 

Mannina also told the journalist “I predict Trump will probably entertain publicly the idea of staying in office, changing the laws, which he’s not allowed to do by the Constitution.” Ironically, it was Mannina who seemed determined to thwart the will of voters and continue on in government after his side’s time was up.

According to Mannina’s LinkedIn, he worked as a Special Assistant to Hillary Clinton in the Senate, then as a Special Assistant at the State Department, then a Desk Officer and Foreign Affairs advisor there. After that, he worked as a Mission Manager at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence during the Trump administration.

In 2019, he became an FBI agent, and in 2020, took the job at Booz Allen.

Hours after James O’Keefe published the video, Joint Staff spokesman Joseph R. Holstead told OMG that he had been sent back to Booz Allen.

“Jamie Mannina is not an advisor to the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Joint Chiefs, nor has he interacted with the Chairman or the Joint Chiefs. We can confirm Mannina was a Booz Allen Hamilton contracted employee with the Joint Staff J6 Command, Control, Communications and Computers/Cyber Directorate. The alleged comments by Mannina do not reflect the positions of the Chairman or the Joint Staff. Furthermore, the Chairman looks forward to working as President-elect Donald J. Trump’s principal military advisor in the next administration,” wrote Holstead.

Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the president’s top military advisor. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Partisan embedded government contractors, who are not beholden to typical government hiring rules, could be an obstacle for Trump to navigate.

Booz Allen did not immediately return a request for comment from The Daily Wire on Mannina’s employment status or why government agencies should trust that its contractors are not undermining its leaders for political reasons.

Someone with the title of “special advisor” and a history of working for a senator would typically be a political appointee and would be replaced by an incoming administration, but his status as a contractor meant that — had the video not come out — he could have continued on.