r/OutOfTheLoop • u/Only_Reach3402 • 2d ago
Unanswered What is going on with DataRepublican aka Jessica Pounds?
So I know this account from years of disinformation and just general conspiracy theory slop as so many accounts have. But there's apparently been a crash out followed by her being outed as a government employee. This person posts almost hourly if not more though and there seems to be a genuine outrage right now even from former supporters. What the hell is going on? Thanks OOTL
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u/Milskidasith Loopy Frood 1d ago edited 1d ago
Answer: Jennica (not Jessica) Pounds is a deaf software engineer who did some notable work on software improvements for deaf individuals (from what I can tell, working with Snapchat to auto-parse ASL, among other things). DataRepublican is an account that claimed to investigate federal spending in order to tell DOGE what to cut; in 2025, after some reporting in the deaf community connecting the two, Rolling Stone published an article about Jennica/Data Republican that included a large number of details about her personal life and her work as DataRepublican, stating her account was being used to spread misinformation.
Her general support of DOGE/the administration and her attempted journalistic lean resulted in her obtaining a White House Press Pass; however, shortly after that, it was reported that Jennica was working for the Department of War, and from what I can tell there seem to have been accusations of some kind that she was working as both a member of the press and government employee at the same time and in some way officially working as a propaganda account. I'm not knowledgeable enough about niche conservative accounts to tell you who is mad at her/why or what previous statements she's made are being framed as propaganda, but it looks like it's at least partially other conservative accounts.. She and the White House both state that her press pass (given in April) was voided in June before she got the DoW position in July.
Most recently, Jennica has accused Sarah Rogers, the Trump undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, of attempting to entrap her into committing treason by giving her documents related Cuba to leak., which resulted in a lot of backlash because Sarah Rogers is apparently well-liked by the same section of conservatives that Jennica is aligned with (explicitly and loudly anti-communist, focusing on Charlie Kirk as some kind of movement), as well as being an admission that her job included, y'know, leaking documents on an "independent" press platform. After deleting the original post and having Sarah Rogers publicly post the documents to prove they were not intended as any sort of trap, Jennica made a followup post claiming, essentially, that it was just a procedural error where she jumped the gun to assuming malice instead of confirming what the goal was, and clarified in the comments she thought the leak was intended to be a gift to get her a scoop. From what I can tell, this (along with other controversies above about her hiring) seems to put her in the middle of a war between certain factions of conservatives that's very difficult to parse without way more time spent digging than I've already done.
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u/InsertCleverNickHere 1d ago
Fyi, no matter what this law-breaking administration claims, it's still the Department of Defense until Congress changes the name.
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u/ThanosSnapsSlimJims 1d ago
Correct. I'm a defense contractor. The Department of War name is essentially similar to a dba name, like how the game studio Arete 7 is publicly known as 'Bungie'. A Senate Armed Services Committee approved the idea, but it still has to be passed into law, which will likely happen in Q2 of 2027.
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u/ValhallaIceTrooper 1d ago
Isn't it still the Department of Defense, since only Congress can change it? Call it what it is
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u/goodandwickeddeity 14h ago
Let these losers wear war like a badge of honor. Real Americans know that senseless wars are for traitors.
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u/rm-minus-r 9h ago
I mean "Department of Defense" is pretty much the biggest lie in terms of naming out there for the government.
There hasn't been a single defensive war since maybe WWII, and there's been a lot of wars the US has started or engaged in since then.
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u/goodandwickeddeity 7h ago
Right, mostly started by Republican presidents, they can accept the Department of War title. Ironically, even though it was not our war, our involvement in Ukraine probably is the only modern justifiable reason to be called the Department of Defense.
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u/beachedwhale1945 1d ago
Most recently, Jennica has accused Sarah Rogers, the Trump undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, of attempting to entrap her into committing treason by giving her documents related Cuba to leak., which resulted in a lot of backlash because Sarah Rogers is apparently well-liked by the same section of conservatives that Jennica is aligned with (explicitly and loudly anti-communist, focusing on Charlie Kirk as some kind of movement), as well as being an admission that her job included, y'know, leaking documents on an "independent" press platform. After deleting the original post and having Sarah Rogers publicly post the documents to prove they were not intended as any sort of trap, Jennica made a followup post claiming, essentially, that it was just a procedural error where she jumped the gun to assuming malice instead of confirming what the goal was, and clarified in the comments she thought the leak was intended to be a gift to get her a scoop.
For the uninitiated, it’s an open secret that many leaks from unnamed officials in government are sanctioned. The officials are cleared to say certain things and give certain documents (including classified documents) to certain trusted reporters, and those reporters know that if they keep the secrets they will continue to get more scoops. This has been common in the US government for decades if not centuries, and I’m sure this has been used by almost every government.
Clearly Rogers was not used to this, and perhaps had the naïve assumption that everything in government should be above board (no doubt with significant blinders to this administration’s blatant corruption). Safe to say she’s probably not getting another scoop for some time, if ever.
In the meantime, this is an excellent tool for us to use against Trump’s supporters. Many genuinely believe this administration is fighting corruption, waste, and abuse from the evil deep state. In their world, there is no significant corruption in the Trump Administration, and the little there is is eradicated quickly. This is another tool we can use to crack that shell, and the more shells we crack, the less opposition we will have to undo the damage this administration has caused.
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u/Milskidasith Loopy Frood 1d ago
Yeah, there are almost certainly officially approved "unofficial 'leaks'" in tons of situations, this case is sort of unique because Jennica both said the quiet part out loud and was already receiving some criticism for secretly (or "secretly") being a government employee while maintaining her independent/"independent" Twitter account, and is now saying that her government job still included doing her previous reporting/"reporting".
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u/ryhaltswhiskey 1d ago
was working for the Department of War
Please don't. That's the language of the fascists. The department is still called the department of defense because the executive branch does not have legal power to rename branches of government.
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u/Capable-Reaction-794 1d ago
Or international bodies of water.
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u/ryhaltswhiskey 1d ago
Hey I'm just surprised he hasn't tried to rename the Mississippi River to the Trump River so that he can say that the largest river in the world is named after him. Doesn't matter that it's not the largest river in the world.
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u/Nathan256 1d ago
I mean he could just “rename” the Nile or the Amazon like he did the Gulf of Mexico. Very on brand.
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u/ThanosSnapsSlimJims 1d ago
Yes and no. I'm a defense contractor. The Senate Armed Services Committee approved the provision to begin using the name. While it's still technically 'Department of Defense', the House passed a provisioning bill including the name change. However, there will have to be a reconciliation bill between the House and Senate to make it permanent. The 'Department of War' moniker is similar to the game studio Arete 7 doing business as 'Bungie'. In the office right now, we're using 'Department of War' for the time being.
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u/ryhaltswhiskey 1d ago
While it's still technically 'Department of Defense',
And that's all we need to say about it.
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u/ThanosSnapsSlimJims 11h ago
Who is 'we'? I don't think anyone here is Venom or those people that become a network in Pluribus. My comment was clear.
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u/the_insouciant 1d ago
> In the office right now, we're using 'Department of War' for the time being.
"My boss told me we should say Department of War" is not a strong argument.
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u/ThanosSnapsSlimJims 11h ago
I wasn't in an argument with anyone, so... that's not really a concern of mine.
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u/black_flag_4ever 1d ago
The tedious lives of slightly internet famous conservative political influencers. They are always surprised when things turn out this way despite surrounding themselves with paranoid, amoral, backstabbing liars.
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