In October 2017, a 30-year-old woman arrived at a hospital in Monterey, California, and requested a rape kit. According to a police report, she said she had been sexually assaulted four days earlier after attending a Republican women’s conference at a Hyatt Regency hotel. The perpetrator, she told police, was Pete Hegseth, a Fox News commentator who had been a speaker at the convention.
The encounter, which did not result in charges against Hegseth and which he has admitted occurred but claimed was consensual, is now in the spotlight due to Hegseth’s surprise nomination as president-elect Donald Trump’s pick for Secretary of Defense. Will it affect his candidacy?
It seems unlikely. It’s clear at this point that allegations of sexual misconduct are no hindrance to being considered for the upper echelons of American power. The Trump cabinet may well include multiple men who have allegations of sexual misconduct against them, and it’s not even a surprise.
After all, just look at Trump himself, who was found liable by an Manhattan civil jury earlier this year of sexual abuse against author E. Jean Carroll. Trump has been accused over and over again of everything from making lewd comments to sexual assault, yet none of this disqualified him in the eyes of the millions of mostly men who chose him to fill the nation’s highest office for a second time.
Still, the sexual misconduct claims floating around the members of the proposed Trump cabinet this time around seem particularly egregious. The claim against Hegseth came into clearer focus on Wednesday, when Mediaite reported the details of the redacted police report and shared it in full.
According to the police report, the woman said she had gone to a bar attached to the hotel where she spotted Hegseth, who she had observed acting inappropriately with women throughout the day by doing things like “rub” their legs. In a text message, she typed that Hegseth gave off a “creeper” vibe, the report says. At the bar, she said, she approached Hegseth and “commented on how she did not appreciate how he treated women.”
Though she did not recall drinking to excess, the woman said, according to the police report, that things began to get “fuzzy” at the bar, and she remembers arguing with Hegseth by the pool after leaving the bar. The next memory she had was being alone with Hegseth in a hotel room. The report states she had her phone in her hand, and she claimed Hegseth asked her who she was texting and took it from her. She then claimed she tried to leave the room, saying no repeatedly, but Hegseth blocked the door with his body. Her next memory, according to the report, was Hegseth having sex with her, his dog tags hanging over her. She said he ejaculated on her stomach and threw a towel at her, before asking if she was okay. The woman went to the hospital four days later. She had been suffering nightmares and memory loss since the alleged assault, she said according to the report.
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