/ CBS/AP
Trump standing by Hegseth amid allegations
A woman told police she was sexually assaulted in 2017 by Pete Hegseth after he took her phone, blocked the door to a California hotel room and refused to let her leave, according to a detailed investigative report released late Wednesday.
Hegseth, a Fox News personality and President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be defense secretary, told police at the time that the encounter had been consensual and denied any wrongdoing, the report said.
News of the allegations surfaced last week when local officials released a brief statement confirming that a woman had accused Hegseth of sexual assault in October 2017 after he had spoken at a Republican women’s event in Monterey.
Hegseth’s lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment early Thursday.
The 22-page police report, which was obtained by Mediaite.com among other outlets, was released in response to a public records request and offers the first detailed account of what the woman alleged transpired – one that is at odds with Hegseth’s version of events.
The report cited police interviews with the alleged victim, a nurse who treated her, a hotel staffer, another woman at the event and Hegseth.
The woman’s name wasn’t released, and CBS News and The Associated Press don’t typically name people who say they’ve been sexually assaulted.
A spokeswoman for the Trump transition said early Thursday that the “report corroborates what Mr. Hegseth’s attorneys have said all along: the incident was fully investigated and no charges were filed because police found the allegations to be false.”
Police recommended the case report be forwarded to the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office for review.
Investigators were first alerted to the alleged assault, the report said, by a nurse who called them after a patient requested a sexual assault exam. The patient told medical personnel she believed she was assaulted five days earlier but couldn’t remember much about what had happened. She reported something may have been slipped into her drink before ending up in the hotel room where she said the assault occurred.
Police collected the unwashed dress and underwear she had worn that night, the report said.
The woman’s partner, who was staying at the hotel with her, told police that he was worried about her that night after she didn’t come back to their room. At 2 a.m., he went to the hotel bar, but she wasn’t there. She made it back a few hours later, apologizing that she “must have fallen asleep.” A few days later, she told him she had been sexually assaulted.
The woman told police she had witnessed the TV anchor acting inappropriately throughout the night and saw him stroking women’s legs. She texted a friend that Hegseth was giving off a “creeper” vibe, according to the report.
After the event, the woman and others attended an afterparty in a hotel suite where she said she confronted Hegseth, telling him she “did not appreciate how he treated women,” the report states.
A group of people, including Hegseth and the woman, left for the hotel’s bar. That’s when “things got fuzzy,” the woman told police.
She remembered having a drink at the bar with Hegseth and others, the police report states. She also told police she argued with Hegseth near the hotel pool, an account supported by a hotel staffer who was sent to handle the disturbance and spoke to police, according to the report.
Soon, the accuser told police, she was inside a hotel room with Hegseth and he took her phone and blocked the door with his body so she couldn’t leave, according to the report. She also told police she remembered “saying ‘no’ a lot,” the report said.
Her next memory was laying on a couch or bed with Hegseth hovering over her bare-chested, his dog tags dangling over her, the report states. Hegseth served in the National Guard, rising to the rank of major.
After she said Hegseth ejaculated on her stomach, she recalled him asking if she was “OK,” the report states. She told police she did not recall how she got back to her own hotel room and had since suffered from nightmares and memory loss.
At the time of the alleged assault in 2017, Hegseth, now 44, was going through a divorce with his second wife, with whom he has three children. She filed for divorce after he had a child with a Fox News producer who is now his wife, according to court records and social media posts by Hegseth. His first marriage ended in 2009, also after infidelity by Hegseth, according to court records.
Hegseth told police that he attended an after party and drank beer but didn’t consume “hard alcohol” and acknowledged being “buzzed” but not drunk, according to the police report.
He said he met the woman at the hotel bar and she led him by the arm back to his hotel room, which surprised him because he initially had no intention of having sex with her, the report said.
Hegseth told investigators the sexual encounter that followed was consensual, adding that he explicitly asked more than once if she was comfortable. Hegseth said in the morning the woman “showed early signs of regret” and he assured her that he wouldn’t tell anyone about the encounter.
Hegseth’s attorney, Timothy Parlatore, has told CBS News Hegseth paid a confidential financial settlement to a woman who accused him of sexual assault out of concern the allegation would lead to his firing from Fox News.
Parlatore said Hegseth reached the settlement agreement to deter his accuser from going forward with a lawsuit, maintaining that he is innocent and the sexual encounter was consensual. Hegseth denies any wrongdoing.
Parlatore declined to disclose the amount of the settlement, saying only that it was “far, far less than what she wanted.” He characterized it as “essentially an extortion and blackmail.”
Fox News Media said in a statement Monday it “was not made aware of the incident or the settlement.”
Trump’s transition team spoke with Parlatore after Hegseth was named as Trump’s nominee defense secretary, the attorney said. He said that he “explained this fully” to them but that he did not know what prior conversations Hegseth had with the transition team, or if they had been informed about the sexual assault allegation and settlement agreement before the announcement of his impending nomination for defense secretary.
“This should have nothing to do with the confirmation process,” he said.
Trump has indicated that these revelations have not deterred him from Hegseth’s selection as defense secretary.
