There’s already dirty laundry galore with many of Trump’s cabinet picks, and the latest shoe to drop comes from Monterey County, where Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth was investigated for sexual assault in 2017.
We should probably expect more of this kind of thing, with the incoming Trump administration’s cabinet picks already facing sworn testimony that they had sex with a 17-year-old girl, or are known to be Russian propaganda parrots, or are the walking scandal machine that is RFK, Jr. And we have more of this kind of thing with Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, as Vanity Fair broke the news late Thursday that Hegseth was investigated for sexual assault in 2017, over an incident that happened in the city of Monterey.
Hegseth was already quite an unusual pick, as while he is a veteran, he was never in any senior military leadership position, and he’s been a Fox News TV personality longer than he was active military. He’s also against women serving in combat positions, and per Vanity Fair, he “once called liberals ‘domestic enemies’ who want ‘trans-lesbian black females [to] run everything!’”
The Chronicle digs into the details of the 2017 sexual assualt investigation. The alleged incident happened on October 7 that year, sometime between midnight and 7 am at the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa on Del Monte Golf Course Road. The alleged victim is not identified, nor are the allegations detailed, but the victim apparently did suffer “contusions to right thigh,” according to police reports. No criminal charges were ever filed.
The City of Monterey put out a statement Thursday night saying, “The Monterey Police Department investigated an alleged sexual assault at 1 Old Golf Course Road,” and “no weapons or property [were] involved.” They added that “The City of Monterey will not be making any other remarks related to this inquiry.”
Hegseth's attorney Timothy Parlatore said in a statement to CBS News that “This allegation was already investigated by the Monterey police department and they found no evidence for it."
This incident happened the same year that Hegseth was divorcing his second wife, though that divorce may have been more because Hegseth was having an affair with a Fox News producer at the time, whom he’d impregnated and would eventually marry.
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Image: NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JULY 19: FOX anchor Pete Hegseth and meteorologist Janice Dean are on stage as Phil Vassar performs on "FOX & Friends" All-American Summer Concert Series on July 19, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images)
