President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth leaves the Russell Senate Office Building on November 21, 2024 in Washington, DC.
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President-elect Donald Trump is already in trouble with his choice of Pete Hegseth to lead the White House. Pentagonfacing new magazine reports It details alleged alcoholism, sexual misconduct and mismanagement while he ran two veterans nonprofits.
The report was released on Sunday evening new yorkerCiting a previously undisclosed whistleblower complaint written in 2015, Hegseth was repeatedly drunk “to the point of needing to be carried out of the organization’s events” while serving as president of Concerned Veterans of America.
Citing a whistleblower report, The New Yorker reported: “Hegers was once restrained while drunk from joining the dancers on stage at a strip club in Louisiana, where he brought his group. .
“The report also alleges that Hegseth, who was married at the time, and other members of his management team sexually pursued female employees of the organization, whom they classified into two categories – ‘party girls’ and ‘non-party girls.’ ” wrote Jane Mayer of The New Yorker.
CNBC has not seen the whistleblower report or the separate complaint letter detailed by the magazine.
The magazine cited three people familiar with the matter as saying Hegseth was later forced to resign as CVA president in 2016, in part due to “concerns about his mismanagement and drinking on the job.”
CNBC has asked Hegseth’s attorney, Timothy Parlatore, for comment, but he earlier declined to comment to NBC News.
The New Yorker cited a statement Parlatore provided to the magazine, which it said came from a person identified by lawyers as an adviser to Hegseth.
“We will not comment on the outlandish accusations made through The New Yorker by a jealous and disgruntled former colleague of Mr. Hegseth,” the statement said. “When you first try real journalism, Please come back to us.”
Trump’s transition team did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on the New Yorker article.
Hegseth, a decorated U.S. military veteran who most recently served as a Fox News host, was appointed by Trump as the next secretary of defense in November.
His nomination came under almost immediate criticism after police in Monterey, Calif., investigated Hegers for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman in October 2017 at a hotel where the Republican Women’s Convention was taking place.
Hegseth told police he had consensual sex with the woman and no criminal charges were filed against him following the investigation.
On November 21, he told reporters on Capitol Hill: “I will keep it very simple as far as the media is concerned. This matter has been fully investigated and I have been completely exonerated, and that is where I want to leave. ” “
At the time of the 2017 incident, Hegseth was divorcing his second wife. Two months before the alleged attack, his current wife, with whom he had an extramarital relationship, gave birth to her and Hegseth’s child.
The Monterey County District Attorney said in a statement in late November that her office declined to file criminal charges against Hegseth in January 2018 because “no charges were supported beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Several years later, Hegseth paid the woman an undisclosed amount “as part of a confidential civil settlement and maintained his innocence,” Parlatore said in mid-November.
Hegseth “ultimately decided to settle for a significantly reduced amount” at the “height of the #MeToo movement,” his attorney told NBC News at the time.
A police report into the sexual assault investigation, made public in November, said investigators spoke with a hotel staff member who saw Hegseth and the accuser at the pool after two different guests complained of loud harassment.
The staffer “indicated that Hegseth was intoxicated” and that the woman with him was “not intoxicated … and very sober,” the police report said.
However, the woman later told police that when she went to his room with Hegseth, she could not remember what had happened.
She “believed something may have fallen into her drink as she could not remember much of what happened that night,” police wrote in the report.
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