Exclusive: Pentagon to ask Trump to sign off on execution of convicted Fort Hood shooter

The Department of War will ask President Donald Trump for final approval to execute the Fort Hood shooter, Nidal Hasan, a DOW official told the Daily Caller News Foundation exclusively.

The execution, if approved by Trump, would be the first carried out by the military since 1961. Hasan, a former Army Major and psychiatrist turned radical Islamic terrorist, killed 13 people and wounded 32 others during his notorious rampage on the Army base in 2009.

“I am 100 percent committed to ensuring the death penalty is carried out for Nidal Hasan,” Hegseth exclusively told the DCNF. “This savage terrorist deserves the harshest lawful punishment for his 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood. The victims and survivors deserve justice without delays.”

Hasan is currently imprisoned in the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Hasan lost his final appeal to his 2013 death sentence in April 2025, according to the San Antonio Express.

Jeffrey and Sheryll Pearson look at the portrait of their son, Army Pfc. Michael Pearson, before the Purple Heart and Defense of Freedom award ceremony on Fort Hood, Texas, April 10, 2015. The event honored the 13 people killed and more than 30 injured in a gunman’s 2009 shooting rampage on the base. U.S. Army photo by Daniel Cernero

Under the Army’s regulations, the Army Secretary put forward the recommendation for Hasan’s execution. It was then passed to the Secretary of War to give “additional recommendations to the President,” the DOW official told DCNF.

“Inmate Hasan’s packet is now in the staffing process for presidential action,” the DOW official said.

Service members are governed by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and thus are subject to different procedures should they receive the death sentence. Hasan is one of four people on military death row, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Hasan told a military mental health panel that the shooting was justified because the victims were “going against the Islamic Empire,” according to the New York Times in 2014. However, the Army controversially decided not to pursue terrorism charges at the time; the Pentagon instead designated the shooting as “workplace violence.”

The Trump administration has consistently shown its willingness to exercise capital punishment as a valid form of justice for particularly heinous crimes.

The White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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