Pete Hegseth speaks with reporters

A woman alleged that Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for defense secretary, prevented her from leaving his hotel room, took her phone and sexually assaulted her, according to a detailed police report made public Wednesday[1].

The complainant, whose name was redacted from the report, later sought a sexual assault examination at a hospital, leading to a nurse reporting the 2017 incident to law enforcement.

Hegseth, who is tapped to lead the military and the nation's largest federal bureaucracy, has vehemently denied the sexual assault allegation, describing the sexual encounter with the married woman as consensual. He told police he repeatedly sought the woman's consent throughout the interaction and insisted she appeared willing. Video footage cited in the report showed the two leaving a hotel bar earlier that evening with their arms linked, appearing friendly.

Read Next: 'We Need You': Defense Secretary Stands Up for Women in Combat Jobs amid Hegseth Nomination[2]

"I'll keep this very simple, the matter was fully investigated, and I was completely cleared, and that's where I'm going to leave it," Hegseth told reporters on Capitol Hill on Thursday after meeting with several Republican senators.

The former Fox New personality has a history of infidelity, including an extramarital affair with a woman who would become his third wife when he was still married to his second. A checkered sexual history can bring extra scrutiny to security clearances granting access to the military's most cloistered secrets, and could be viewed as a vulnerability that could be exploited by adversaries.

But in practicality, Trump and the executive branch could waive any issues that arise with Hegseth's background check, if he is confirmed to lead the Pentagon.

The sexual assault allegation, which was disclosed by local authorities in California after Hegseth's nomination by Trump, has become a potential political liability, as he seeks support in the Senate, which vets and approves presidential nominees. Another Trump nominee, Matt Gaetz, who was tapped to be U.S. attorney general, withdrew from consideration Thursday amid allegations he paid women for sex, had sex with an underage teenager and did illegal drugs.

The alleged incident involving Hegseth occurred in October 2017, during a Republican women's conference in Monterey, California, at a Hyatt hotel. The woman told police she drank with Hegseth at the hotel bar and said her memory started to become hazy. She recalled being in Hegseth's hotel room, saying she remembered repeatedly saying "no."

After the sexual act, the woman told Hegseth that she would tell her husband -- who was staying at the same hotel -- that she fell asleep on a couch in someone else's room. Hegseth told her she did not have to worry about him saying anything but told authorities she "showed early signs of regret."

Hegseth paid the woman an undisclosed amount of money as part of a nondisclosure agreement in 2020, according to his attorney, Tim Parlatore, who told Military.com that[3] the sex was consensual and that the now-former Fox News host was a victim of blackmail.

Military.com reached out to Parlatore regarding the details in the police report but did not hear back in time for publication.

Before his nomination, Hegseth was best known as a former co-host of "Fox and Friends Weekend" and by his other frequent appearances on Fox News. The channel notified Military.com on Monday that Hegseth was no longer employed there. He also served 13 years in the National Guard[4], with several breaks in service, and left as a major in 2021.

After the 2017 incident, the woman told police she did not recall how she ended up in Hegseth's bedroom, only remembering his military dog tags hanging off his neck and over her head.

She could not recall to authorities how much alcohol she consumed but told a hospital nurse her drink may have been drugged because her memory was hazy. Witnesses told police she had no clear hangover symptoms the following day.

Charges were never filed against Hegseth, but local police did not say the allegations were false. Meanwhile, some Republicans on Capitol Hill were downplaying the sexual encounter on Thursday, as Hegseth and Vice President-elect JD Vance were visiting offices in an attempt to whip up support for the nomination.

"I don't think there's any way in the world you can say that this was a sexual assault," Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters after his meeting with Hegseth. "You can read the report yourself. If you read it, you can clearly see that it was two people flirting with each other. ... There's a reason why there were no charges set."

Asked whether the alleged assault and history of infidelity makes Hegseth a security risk, Mullin dismissed the concern.

"Infidelity? He wasn't married at the time" of the alleged assault, Mullin said.

Court records however, dispute that assertion.

Two months before the incident, in August 2017, Hegseth had a daughter with Fox News producer[5] Jennifer Rauchet, according to social media[6] posts from the pair[7]. A month later, Hegseth's second wife, Samantha, filed for divorce, according to Minnesota court records. That divorce wasn't finalized until July 2018, the records show.

The incident is also not the first time Hegseth has been found to be unfaithful.

Hegseth's first marriage to Meredith Schwarz ended when she filed for divorce in 2008, according to Minnesota court records. Numerous outlets reported, citing the divorce judgment, that the marriage ended over Hegseth's infidelity.

However, none of those things stopped Hegseth's rise into Trump's orbit.

In the years that followed the sexual assault allegation, Rauchet and Hegseth married at Trump National Golf Club Colts Neck in New Jersey, and he successfully lobbied the then-President Trump to exonerate two Army[8] officers accused of murder while serving in Afghanistan and lessen the punishment of Navy SEAL[9] Eddie Gallagher, who was accused of fatally stabbing a teenage ISIS prisoner.

Hegeseth was also considered to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs[10] before the first Trump term ended.

However, Hegseth's nomination this month came as a surprise choice to lead the Pentagon, due to his lack of experience in defense policy and his modest level of military experience. He capped his military career with a brief stint in the Washington D.C. National Guard serving as a midlevel part-time official, which would have not exposed him to high-level military planning or operations.

He has also long argued against allowing women in military combat roles, which could affect thousands of troops if acted on as defense secretary, and questioned whether women in the military make the country safer.

Related: Thousands of Women Serve in Combat Roles. Pentagon Nominee Hegseth Says They Shouldn't.[11]

© Copyright 2024 Military.com. All rights reserved. This article may not be republished, rebroadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without written permission. To reprint or license this article or any content from Military.com, please submit your request here[12].

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Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III arrives in Vientiane, Laos

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Wednesday defended women serving in the military and, specifically in combat roles, amid growing scrutiny of comments by his would-be successor, Pete Hegseth.

"I see that because of my experience, and that experience is extensive ... I think our women add significant value to the United States military, and we should never change that," Austin told reporters Wednesday while traveling in Laos[1].

The remarks come after President-elect Donald Trump nominated now-former Fox News host Hegseth for the top Pentagon position. In his writing and media appearances, Hegseth has made clear[2] that he opposes female troops serving in combat positions[3].

Read Next: Coast Guard Set to Receive New Icebreaker by Year's End, Bolstering US Presence in Arctic[4]

In an appearance on "The Shawn Ryan Show" earlier this month, Hegseth said that allowing women to serve in combat "hasn't made us more effective, hasn't made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated" and that he was "straight-up saying we should not have women in combat roles."

Hegseth, who also had a fairly typical military career that spanned 13 years as a part-timer in the National Guard[5] and culminated in the midlevel rank of major, dedicated a significant portion of his latest book to criticizing the inclusion of women in combat roles.

In the book, Hegseth strongly insinuated, without much evidence, that women benefit from preferential treatment and rise through the ranks at the expense of more qualified men.

Hegseth claimed that Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the top Navy[6] officer and the first woman to hold the post, was unqualified for the job and was chosen for the role, because "politics is all about optics instead of results."

Over her decades-long career, Franchetti[7] served on a handful of ships, including commanding the destroyer USS Ross before being selected to lead a destroyer squadron. As an admiral, she commanded the U.S. forces in South Korea, two carrier strike groups and U.S. Naval Forces Europe before being selected as the Navy's No. 2 officer -- vice chief of naval operations.

"Naval operations being weakened won't matter to anyone," Hegseth added.

Meanwhile, Austin said that in his "three long tours to Iraq and then one to Afghanistan, every place I went, there were women doing incredible things, and they were adding value to the overall effort, whether they were pilots, whether they were operational experts, whether they were intel experts."

However, the defense secretary stressed that he doesn't know Hegseth personally "so I can't comment on and won't comment on anything that he said."

Austin's decades-long military career, which began in 1975, saw him rise through the ranks and command troops at a variety of levels in the Middle East throughout the Global War on Terrorism.

He would not only go on to be the first African American to command an infantry division[8] in combat but also served as the Army[9]'s second-highest officer. In 2013, he was tapped to head the U.S. Central Command, where he would command all U.S. military operations in the Middle East during the rise of ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

Austin leaned on that experience in defending the role women play in military combat operations.

"When I was a one-star, I was a deputy commander of the Third Infantry Division," Austin told reporters, speaking about the Gulf War. The unit "was the major element that conducted the attack ... from Kuwait all the way up to Baghdad."

"My goal was to be in a position where I could see and feel the fight and so that meant that I had to be right there ... right behind the lead elements," he said. "In my command post were several very courageous and very proficient women who did amazing things to support our effort and support their colleagues."

While the amount of women serving in combat roles is small compared to their male counterparts, they nevertheless make up a significant -- and growing -- part of the military force.

Military.com has found[10] that the Army has around 3,800 women currently serving in frontline combat roles across the infantry, cavalry, armor and field artillery, while the Marine Corps[11] has nearly 700 women serving in similar roles, including 112 female infantry riflemen and 15 Marine officers.

Data provided by the Marine Corps also showed that since 2018, the number of Marine women in combat roles has increased sixfold for officers and more than tripled for enlisted.

Meanwhile, the Navy, which is different from the two land warfare branches in its structure and operations, considers its submarine service -- which is all volunteer and, until 2010, all male -- to be a combat role.

The sea service recently said 730 women are currently serving in the submarine force, and it plans to expand the number of subs with women aboard from the current 54 boats up to 61 by 2033.

New submarines, like the recently commissioned USS New Jersey, are also being built with integration in mind.

When Austin was asked whether he had a message to the women currently serving in the military, his answer was direct.

"We need you, we have faith in you, we are appreciative of your service, and you add value to the finest and most lethal fighting force on Earth," he said.

Related: Thousands of Women Serve in Combat Roles. Pentagon Nominee Hegseth Says They Shouldn't.[12]

© Copyright 2024 Military.com. All rights reserved. This article may not be republished, rebroadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without written permission. To reprint or license this article or any content from Military.com, please submit your request here[13].

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