The GOP Is Standing by Pete Hegseth Despite New Details About Sexual Assault Allegation
One Republican senator wrote off the disturbing 2017 rape allegation as “clearly” just “two people flirting with each other."
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Within days of winning the election, Donald Trump tapped former Fox News anchor Pete Hegseth to run the defense department. It was an immediately controversial pick given Hegseth’s total lack of experience beyond spewing right-wing bile on cable TV. But the nomination quickly became even more controversial when a rape allegation against Hegseth from an unnamed woman in 2017 emerged. Hegseth confirmed that he’d paid the woman to sign an NDA and privately settle the matter in 2017, but denied her allegations. No charges were filed against Hegseth.
Then, toward the end of last week, police released their initial report, which included a slew of increasingly dark allegations. The assault allegedly occurred in October 2017 when both Hegseth and the woman, called Jane Doe, attended a conference at a hotel in Northern California. During the convention, the woman texted her husband about her disgust with Hegseth, who was a speaker. The police report says that later in the evening, Doe served as a “crotch blocker” protecting another woman from Hegseth’s aggressive sexual advances. Then, at some point in the evening, a hotel employee found Hegseth and Doe loudly arguing by the pool after another guest reported their yelling. Hegseth told the employee that he didn’t have to keep his noise level down because he had “freedom of speech.”
At one point in the night, Doe texted her husband that she’d been drinking more than usual that day. According to the police report, she later told a forensic nurse that she believed her drink had been drugged. Her next memories include finding herself in Hegseth’s hotel room, where she alleged that he took her phone and stopped her from leaving. “JANE DOE remembered saying ‘no’ a lot,” the report said. “JANE DOE’s next memory was when she was on a bed or a couch and HEGSETH was over her.” The report shows Hegseth telling police that “there was ‘always’ conversation and ‘always’ consensual contact between the two of them.” But he still conceded to police at the time that Doe “showed early signs of regret” afterward the encounter, without elaborating on what this meant. Following the alleged incident, Doe went to a hospital for a sexual assault exam, and the nurse reported this to the police. Last week, CNN contacted Doe and reported that she “became visibly distraught at the mention of Hegseth’s name but declined to be interviewed.”
[image or embed]— Kylie Cheung (@kylietcheung.bsky.social) November 21, 2024 at 10:13 AM
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