After Fox News host Pete Hegseth was nominated by Donald Trump as the next Secretary of Defense, an allegation surfaced that Hegseth had been accused of rape by a woman in 2017. Hegseth has denied wrongdoing, but Trump officials were said to be perturbed that they hadn’t been informed in advance that a police report existed for the alleged incident, which was followed by a financial settlement.
Now, a major investigative piece has arrived, which lays out a long history of workplace and sexual misconduct by the nominee, as well as a troubling pattern of alcohol-related incidents. The piece, written by veteran investigative reporter Jane Mayer in The New Yorker, reports that Hegseth was forced out of multiple jobs, that he mismanaged those places — much smaller organizations than the Pentagon — and even that he once took co-workers to a Florida strip club and had to be stopped from dancing on stage.
From the once in a generation @JaneMayerNYer —essential reading
Pete Hegseth’s Secret History https://t.co/VELSK094Iv
— Jorie Graham (@jorie_graham) December 2, 2024
Among the details revealed in the New Yorker piece, backed by contemporaneous documents: Hegseth was “forced to step down” from jobs leading a pair of veterans organizations, Veterans for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America, “in the face of serious allegations of financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety, and personal misconduct.”
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The story contains multiple details about Hegseth becoming intoxicated at official events with the organizations, including occasions in which he had to be physically carried out of events or back to his hotel room by personnel. The story also reveals one incident in which Hegseth “had to be restrained while drunk from joining the dancers on the stage of a Louisiana strip club, where he had brought his team.”
Also revealed in the Mayer piece is that Hegseth, while representing one of his organizations in Ohio, led a chant of “Kill All Muslims!” And there are details in the piece about severe financial mismanagement by Hegseth, when he ran the veterans organizations.
The only cabinet nominee in modern times to lose a confirmation vote did so under similar circumstances: Sen. John Tower (R-TX), nominated to be Secretary of Defense by President George H.W. Bush in 1989, had his nomination rejected by his own former Senate colleagues, who were aware of Tower’s penchant for excessive drinking, womanizing and other inappropriate behavior. Time will have to tell if Hegseth meets a similar fate.
Photo courtesy of Political Tribune media library.
