[Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Pentagon, acknowledged Tuesday he is “not a perfect person” but was defiant in the face of multiple allegations surrounding his past conduct during a contentious confirmation hearing.
Hegseth dismissed the allegation that he sexually assaulted a woman in 2017 as false and part of a “coordinated smear campaign,” claiming that the attacks against him were an attempt to use him to also smear the president-elect.
In a sign of Hegseth’s strong position, Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, one of the Republicans who had initially expressed concerns about his nomination, said after the hearing that she would support him.
Democrats pressed Hegseth on sexual assault allegation. Sen. Mazie Hirono, a Hawaii Democrat, pressed Hegseth on the 2017 sexual assault investigation, asking if he’d ever faced discipline or entered into a settlement related to physical harassment or assault of a sexual nature.
“I was falsely accused in October of 2017, it was fully investigated, and I was completely cleared,” Hegseth said.
“I don’t think ‘completely cleared’ is accurate,” Hirono responded, noting his lawyer has said he entered into a non-disclosure agreement with his accuser as part of a settlement.
Hegseth also denied allegations of workplace drinking, while Democrats pressed him about not drinking if he was in charge of the Pentagon.
Democrats also pressed Hegseth over comments on women in combat: Several Democrats pushed Hegseth to answer for his past public comments and writings in his 2023 book about women in the military, questioning whether he could give female service members a fair shot if he’s in charge of the Pentagon.
Hegseth told Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand that he has “never disparaged” women who serve in the military, and said he had “personal experience” of instances of standards being lowered, pointing to examples he was told by others while writing his book “The War on Warriors.”
He did not, however, provide a specific example of standards being lowered to bring women into units when pushed by Gillibrand to do so.
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