Donald Trump bribed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to woman who accused him of rape

Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary bribed a woman who accused him of raping her seven years ago.

Fox News pundit and former National Guard officer Pete Hegseth was investigated for alleged sexual assault in 2017, but no charges were filed.

The alleged rape occurred in the early morning hours of October 8, 2017, at the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa in Monterey, California.

The council said local police investigated the ‘alleged sexual assault’ involving Hegseth and it was reported four days later.

According to the statement, there was no weapon in the incident, but there were injuries; ‘contusions on right thigh’.

No further details were released, and the city said it would not release the full police report, saying it was exempt from public release. The statement did not specify what the investigation was.

Hegseth, who was divorced from his second wife at the time of the alleged rape, was not charged in any criminal case or named as a defendant in any civil lawsuit.

Timothy Parlatore, the attorney representing Hegseth, admitted: Washington Post that his client paid the woman for her silence.

Fox News pundit and former National Guard officer Pete Hegseth was investigated for alleged sexual assault in 2017 but not charged

Pete Hegseth and his wife Jennifer Hegseth

He said Hegseth paid him an undisclosed amount because he feared that discovery of the allegation “would lead to his immediate departure from Fox.”

Parlatore said Hegseth was drunk and claimed the woman was “the aggressor in the encounter,” but police disagreed.

The complaint, sent to Trump’s staff from an anonymous woman with extensive knowledge of the alleged rape, described the story told to police at the time.

Hegseth was a speaker at the California Republican Women’s Federation conference held at the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa on the day of the rape allegation.

He later joined the woman, who was staying at the hotel with her husband and young children, and other guests at the hotel bar.

Part of his job at the conference was to make sure Hegseth got out of bed in time to catch his flight home the next morning.

At some point that night, he allegedly received messages from two women at the bar saying Hegseth ‘began to insist on taking them upstairs to his room’.

He allegedly came over and spoke to them, and as they were leaving he ‘recalled feeling Hegseth getting angry’.

Hegseth was a speaker at the California Federation of Republican Women conference held at the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa on the day of the alleged rape (pictured).

President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday that he has nominated Fox News host and Army veteran Pete Hegseth to be secretary of defense.

The note, sent by the other woman, claimed that ‘Hegseth did not remember anything until she walked into the hotel room and then stumbled to find it.’

The memo claimed that the six to nine hours after Hegseth was interfered with in his flirting with other women were “very uncertain.”

The note claimed that when she returned home, she “had a memory of being raped the night before and having a panic attack.”

That’s when she went to the emergency room and had a rape test taken, which came back positive for semen.

The woman who wrote the note said they had been friends for 15 years and had “never seen him be irresponsible, drunk or of a suspicious character.”

Parlatore argued for a very different set of incidents where the sex was consensual and the woman took advantage of Hegseth.

‘Witnesses stated that Mr Hegseth was visibly drunk but not drunk as the complainant took him by the arm and took him to his hotel room,’ he said.

He claimed they walked out of the bar arm in arm and that the woman was smiling and that when they reached her room she was the “aggressor who initiated the sexual activity”.

Pete Hegseth in the Oval Office with Donald Trump since Trump was president

Hegseth allegedly planned to tell the woman’s husband that she had fallen asleep on the couch in a friend’s room, Parlatore said.

He said the emergency room examination found ‘no evidence that the sexual contact was non-consensual’.

The friend’s note stated that some time after the police chose not to pursue the case, she and her husband hired a lawyer ‘to make sure Hegseth could not get away unpunished.’

Parlatore said he responded with a cease and desist order filed with the Post on Feb. 2, 2020.

“If you choose to continue to file a frivolous lawsuit against my client, my client has instructed our firm to pursue all available remedies against you,” the letter said.

‘Both you and Mr. Hegseth undoubtedly have wives, families and children whom you love dearly, and fighting in the open is in no one’s best interest – especially in a situation like this, where both the law and the facts are against it.’

Hegseth’s then-wife was in the process of divorcing him at the time of the rape allegation.

Pete Hegseth (left) Iraq and Afghanistan veteran; Co-host of ‘Fox & Friends Weekends’ with Ainsely Earnhardt and Brian Kilmeade

The woman, Hegseth, began negotiating a confidentiality agreement that was eventually signed nearly two and a half years after the alleged rape.

“Hegseth felt strongly that the complainant was the victim of blackmail and innocent collateral damage because of a lie she hid to keep her marriage intact,” Parlatore said.

The lawyer claimed that Hegseth, at the height of the MeToo movement at the time, thought the settlement would be in his best interest.

New chief of staff Susie Wiles was notified of the allegation Wednesday night. Vanity Fair reported.

Lawyers for Wiles and Trump spoke with Hegseth about the issue on Thursday. Hegseth told them the allegation stemmed from a consensual encounter, describing it as a ‘he said, she said’ situation, a source told Vanity Fair.

His staff said Trump stood by his nominee.

“Mr. Hegseth has vehemently denied all allegations and no criminal charges have been filed,” Trump communications director Steven Cheung said.

‘We look forward to his confirmation as the United States Secretary of Defense so that he can begin on Day One to Make America Safe and Great Again.’

Hegseth’s nomination to head the Pentagon is controversial.

He is an Iraq and Afghanistan veteran with a handful of military medals, including two Bronze Stars.

But many questioned whether the 44-year-old co-host of ‘Fox & Friends Weekends’ could handle running the Department of Defense, which has an $842 billion budget, almost three million employees and 750 military installations around the world.

He also has a history of making controversial statements and once described liberals as ‘enemies within’.

And he said women shouldn’t be in combat for the U.S. military; It’s a point he’s made many times, including in an interview on ‘The Shawn Ryan Show’ podcast last week.

“I say, truthfully, that women should not be in combat roles,” Hegseth said on that podcast. ‘This didn’t make us more effective, it didn’t make us more lethal, it made the fight more complicated.’

His support for war veterans accused of war crimes has also drawn criticism.

Many questioned whether he could win Senate confirmation due to his lack of experience.

Hegseth has been married to his third wife, Fox News producer Jennifer Rauchet, since 2019. The two were married at Trump’s National Gold Club in Colts Neck, New Jersey.

“They will have a wonderful life together,” Trump wrote on Twitter about the marriage.

Hegseth and his first wife, Meredith Schwarz, divorced in 2009 amid allegations of cheating.

Pete Herseth and Jennifer Rauchet’s wedding at the Trump National Gold Club in New Jersey

A year later Hegseth married Samantha Deering. Hegseth started working at Fox News in 2014, their fourth year of marriage.

There he began a relationship with Jennifer Rauchet, a producer at the network. Rauchet was also married to Hegseth at the beginning of his relationship.

The situation was made public in 2017. Hegseth was already a father of three children with Deering, and he and Rauchet had a daughter together in August 2017.

Hegseth and Deering They divorced in August 2017, and her child with Rauchet was born in the same month. The alleged attack in California took place in October of that year.

An ally of Hegseth blamed the allegation on GOP establishment members who tried to block Hegseth’s candidacy.

“They’re going to try to eliminate all of these nominees before the confirmation vote,” the ally told Vanity Fair.