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The nation was stunned Thursday as details emerged of allegations against Pete Hegseth, Fox News host and Donald Trump’s nominee for Defense Secretary. According to a police report revealed by CNN, a California woman alleged she was sexually assaulted by Hegseth in a hotel room. She reportedly recalled saying “No” repeatedly during the incident.
“The Hegseth police records are really bad and disturbing,” said Sam Stein, managing editor of The Bulwark. “If the inclination is to say—ah well, it’s a he-said-she-said scenario—then it’s not clear what type of contemporaneous accounts and evidence will ever convince you that your guy did something wrong.”
Hegseth’s attorneys acknowledged a financial settlement with the woman but denied the allegations detailed in the 22-page police report. The report, reportedly initiated by a nurse’s alert, also cited complaints about Hegseth’s behavior toward hotel staff. Conservative commentator Tim Miller described the scene, saying, “The twice-divorced Sec. Def nominee shouting down a woman by the pool at 1:30 a.m. and then berating hotel staff about having fReeDom oF sPEEch when they tell him to chill out.”
Hegseth is one of several Trump nominees facing allegations of sexual misconduct. Attorney General nominee Matt Gaetz has been accused of sex with a minor, and Education Secretary nominee Linda McMahon is alleged to have covered up child sex abuse within WWE. Health Secretary pick Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faces accusations of sexually abusing a babysitter.
These allegations add to Trump’s own history of sexual misconduct claims. The president-elect was found liable for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll in the 1990s and ordered to pay $5 million in damages. In 2016, leaked footage showed Trump bragging about grabbing women without their consent.
Political observers expressed outrage and cynicism. Huffington Post correspondent S.V. Dáte remarked, “Um … the president-elect has bragged about being able to grab women by the genitals and last year was found by a jury to have jammed his fingers up a woman’s vagina against her will. Doesn’t this make Hegseth even more of a star in Trump’s America?”
Others criticized the political system. Former White House ethics attorney Richard W. Painter noted, “Sanctimonious Senate Democrats who threw [Al Franken] under the bus over far less will probably now watch every one of these cabinet members get confirmed by Republicans.”
As CNN’s Ann Navarro-Cárdenas put it, “We owe it to the millions of men and women who serve in our military, to pay attention to this.”
