President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to oversee the entire U.S. military, former Fox News personality Pete Hegseth, was confronted Thursday by a reporter who asked point-blank whether he raped a woman in 2017, as described in a police report.
“As far as the media is concerned, it’s very simple,” said Hegseth, who was on Capitol Hill to meet with senators tasked with weighing whether to approve him as the next U.S. defense secretary.
“The matter was fully investigated, and I was completely cleared, and that’s where I’m going to leave it,” he said.
The police report does not state that Hegseth was cleared; rather, it recommended that the case be forwarded to local prosecutors for review, The Associated Press reported.
Prosecutors may choose not to pursue a case for an assortment of reasons, including the limited availability of witnesses, whether a jury might deem those witnesses credible and whether alleged victims want to participate in the process.
The incident allegedly occurred at a Republican women’s conference hosted at a hotel in Monterey, California, where Hegseth had been invited to give a speech in October 2017.
A woman, whose name has not been made public, sought a sexual assault exam at a medical facility a few days after she said she woke up with a hazy memory of being assaulted by the Fox host.
She had reportedly confronted him earlier, in a social setting, because she felt he was behaving inappropriately with other women. The woman texted a friend that Hegseth had a “creeper” vibe about him, the AP noted.
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She said “things got fuzzy” in the evening. Hegseth allegedly brought her to a room in the hotel, took her phone and blocked her from leaving. She said she had a memory of a shirtless Hegseth bending over her, with his dog tags dangling above her.
The nurse who treated her contacted police about the allegation, the AP said.
Hegseth, a Trump loyalist, has faced other pushback to his bid to lead the world’s largest military. He never achieved a rank higher than major while serving in the Army and has a dearth of leadership experience.
Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.