Police report sheds new light on Pentagon nominee Hegseth’s sexual encounter that led to sexual assault allegations

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.

The complainant, whose name was redacted from the report, later requested a sexual assault investigation at a hospital, which led to a nurse reporting the 2017 incident to police.

Hegseth, who is being tapped to lead the military and the nation’s largest federal bureaucracy, has vehemently denied the sexual abuse accusation and described the sexual encounter with the married woman as consensual. He told police that he repeatedly asked for the woman’s permission throughout the conversation and that she seemed willing. Video footage cited in the report shows the two leaving a hotel bar earlier that evening with their arms linked and looking friendly.

Read next: ‘We need you’: Defense secretary stands up for women in combat jobs amid Hegseth nomination

“I’m going to keep this very simple: the case has been fully investigated and I have been fully exonerated, and I’m going to leave it at that,” 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 while he was still married to his second. A checkered sexual history could lead to additional scrutiny of security clearances that grant access to the military’s most hidden secrets, and could be seen as a vulnerability to be exploited by adversaries.

But in practice, Trump and the executive branch could waive any issues raised by Hegseth’s background check if he is confirmed to lead the Pentagon.

The sexual abuse allegation, which was revealed by local authorities in California after Trump’s nomination of Hegseth, has become a potential political liability as he seeks support in the Senate, which vets and approves presidential candidates. Another Trump candidate, Matt Gaetz, who was appointed U.S. attorney general, withdrew from treatment Thursday amid allegations that he paid women for sex, had sex with an underage teenager and used 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 had been drinking with Hegseth at the hotel bar and said her memory began to become blurry. She recalled being in Hegseth’s hotel room and said she remembered saying “no” repeatedly.

After the sex act, the woman told Hegseth that she would tell her husband – who was staying at the same hotel – that she had fallen asleep on a couch in someone else’s room. Hegseth told her not to worry about him saying anything, but told authorities she was “showing early signs of remorse.”

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

Military.com reached out to Parlatore about 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 for his other frequent appearances on Fox News. The station informed Military.com on Monday that Hegseth was no longer employed there. He also served 13 years in the National Guard, with several breaks in service, leaving as a major in 2021.

After the 2017 incident, the woman told police she could not remember how she ended up in Hegseth’s bedroom. She only remembered his military dog ​​tags hanging around his neck and above her head.

She could not remember to authorities how much alcohol she had drunk, but told a hospital nurse that her drink may have been drugged because her memory was blurry. Witnesses told police she had no obvious hangover symptoms the next day.

No charges were ever filed against Hegseth, but local police did not say the accusations were false. Meanwhile, some Republicans on Capitol Hill downplayed the sexual encounter Thursday, as Hegseth and newly elected Vice President J.D. Vance visited offices in an effort to drum up support for the nomination.

“I don’t think there’s any way in the world you can say this was an 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 for yourself. When you read it, you can clearly see that it was two people flirting with each other. … There’s a reason why no charges were filed.”

When asked whether the alleged abuse and history of infidelity make Hegseth a security risk, Mullin dismissed the concern.

“Infidelity? He was not married at the time” of the alleged assault, Mullin said.

However, court records dispute this claim.

Two months before the incident, in August 2017, Hegseth had a daughter with Fox News producer Jennifer Rauchet, according to the couple’s social media posts. A month later, Hegseth’s second wife, Samantha, filed for divorce, according to Minnesota court records. That divorce was not finalized until July 2018, records show.

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

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

None of these things, however, stopped Hegseth’s rise into Trump’s orbit.

In the years that followed the sexual assault accusation, Rauchet and Hegseth married at Trump National Golf Club Colts Neck in New Jersey, and he successfully lobbied then-President Trump to exonerate two military officers charged with murder while in Afghanistan and reduce the sentence. of Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher, who was accused of fatally stabbing a teenage ISIS prisoner.

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

However, Hegseth’s appointment this month came as a surprise choice to lead the Pentagon, given his lack of defense policy experience and modest military experience. He concluded his military career with a brief stint in the Washington DC National Guard, where he served as a part-time mid-level officer, which would not have exposed him to high-level military planning or operations.

He has also long argued against allowing women into military combat roles, which could impact thousands of troops if he were to serve 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.

Story continues