Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, was the target of sexual assault allegations in 2017, according to a police report released Wednesday evening.
At least that’s what CNN reported on Thursday. A California woman reportedly complained to police that she was sexually assaulted by the Fox News TV host during a Republican women’s event in Monterey in October 2017.
He allegedly physically prevented her from leaving a hotel room, took her phone, then sexually assaulted her without her consent, according to the police report, obtained by CNN.
As for Pete Hegseth, he would have denied these acts, telling the police that their meeting was consensual and that he would have ensured on several occasions that the woman was “comfortable with what was happening between them”.
The candidate for Secretary of Defense would also have paid the woman in question in 2023 to avoid the threat of an unfounded trial, his lawyer confirmed.
He reportedly feared that the woman would make an accusation against him during the #MeToo movement, which could have cost him his job as anchor at Fox News.
Seven years after the alleged assault, a request for access to the 22-page report was filed on public records, which found an account that contradicted Hegseth’s version of events.
“This police report confirms what I have said all along, that the incident was thoroughly investigated and the police found the allegations to be false, therefore no charges “has not been filed,” Timothy Parlatore, Hegseth’s lawyer, told CNN Wednesday evening, although the report does not say that police deemed the allegations false.
The spokesperson for Donald Trump’s transition team, Karoline Leavitt, stressed in a press release that the “police judged that the allegations were false.”
She called the candidate a “highly respected combat veteran who will honorably serve” the United States.
