We made a cheat sheet for you to keep up with Pete Hegseth’s ever-growing list of allegations.Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Zuma
Trump’s picks for taking over the federal government range from the conspiratorial to the absurdly underqualified.
But it’s former Fox News host Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, who may take the cake as the president-elect’s most controversial. (He had arguably been tied for that ignominious distinction with former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, Trump’s brief pick for attorney general who dropped out over accusations of drug use and sexual misconduct.)
Since getting tapped for defense secretary, multiple disturbing accusations against Hegseth have emerged. The latest, revealed in a bombshell-packed New Yorker report late Sunday, centers on allegations of a drinking problem, sexual impropriety, and financial misconduct that reportedly forced Hegseth out of leadership positions from two different nonprofit advocacy groups catering to veterans. (Hegseth is a veteran who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, as my colleague Stephanie Mencimer notes.)
Here are all the allegations Hegseth is currently facing that you should know about:
Mismanagement, a Drinking Problem, and Sexually Inappropriate Behavior
A lengthy report in the New Yorker, from veteran reporter Jane Mayer, alleges that Hegseth was forced to step down from leadership posts at two nonprofit advocacy groups—Veterans for Freedom (VFF) and Concerned Veterans for America (CVA)—before moving to Fox News. Among the alleged reasons for his departure from VFF: Hagseth reportedly racked up more than $400,000 in debt for the organization.
One of Mayer’s main sources is a seven-page whistleblower report focused on Hegseth’s time at CVA, where he was president from 2013 until 2016. The report, compiled by former CVA employees, reportedly describes Hegseth as repeatedly drunk at work events, including one incident that required Hegseth to be restrained from getting on stage at a Louisiana strip club where he had brought his team. The whistleblower report also reportedly alleges that Hegseth, who was married at the time, and other managers at the organization sexually pursued some of their female colleagues. Mayer cites another letter from a former employee that details an incident in which Hegseth reportedly drunkenly chanted “Kill all Muslims!” while at a hotel bar during a work trip.
“I’ve seen him drunk so many times,” one of the authors of the whistleblower report told the magazine. “I’ve seen him dragged away not a few times but multiple times. To have him at the Pentagon would be scary.”
Hegseth’s lawyer, Tim Parlatore, sent the New Yorker a statement attributed to an adviser to Hegseth that stated: “We’re not going to comment on outlandish claims laundered through The New Yorker by a petty and jealous disgruntled former associate of Mr. Hegseth’s. Get back to us when you try your first attempt at actual journalism.”
Rape Allegation
A recently disclosed police report revealed that a woman accused Hegseth of raping her at a 2017 Republican women’s conference in Monterey, California. While no charges were filed and Hegseth claimed the encounter was consensual, he wound up paying the woman as part of a nondisclosure agreement, the Washington Post first reported last month. Parlatore, Hegseth’s lawyer, told the Post that the woman who made the accusation was “the aggressor in initiating sexual activity” and that Hegseth made the payment “knowing that it was the height of the MeToo movement” and afraid he could potentially lose his Fox News position.
His Mother Called Him “an Abuser of Women”
As my colleague Pema Levy wrote this weekend, Hegseth’s mother, Penelope Hegseth, wrote her son an email in 2018 in which she called him “an abuser of women,” adding, “your abuse over the years to women (dishonesty, sleeping around, betrayal, debasing, belittling) needs to be called out.” The letter, first obtained by the New York Times, reportedly focused on how Hegseth treated his ex-wife, Samantha, during their divorce proceedings. Penelope Hegseth told the Times she recanted the accusations she made in the email, alleging she wrote them in anger and immediately followed up to him with an apology. She also called the newspaper’s decision to publish the contents of the email “disgusting.”
Hegseth’s lawyer and a spokesperson for the Trump transition team did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Mother Jones on Monday.
As Pema writes, though, don’t expect the allegations to tank Hegseth’s confirmation hearings:
Trump himself has been found liable for sexual assault, and faced numerous other allegations of assault and cheating. If the commander-in-chief can get away with it, maybe Hegseth can too.