Donald Trump’s Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth paid the woman who accused him of rape

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

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

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

Local police investigated “an alleged assault” involving Hegseth that was reported four days later, the city said.

No weapons were involved, according to the statement, but there were injuries — “bruises to the right thigh.”

No further details were released and the city said it would not release the full police report, noting it was exempt from public disclosure. The statement did not say what happened to the investigation.

Hegseth, who was separated from his second wife at the time of the alleged rape, has not been charged in any criminal case and has not been named as a suspect in any civil lawsuit.

Timothy Parlatore, an attorney representing Hegseth, conceded Washingtonpost that his client paid the woman for her silence.

He said Hegseth paid her an undisclosed amount because he feared that releasing the allegation “would result in his immediate dismissal from Fox.”

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

A complaint from an unnamed woman with extensive knowledge of the alleged rape, sent to Trump’s staff, explained the story police were told at the time.

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

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

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

At some point that evening, she received text messages from two women at the bar stating that Hegseth was “becoming pushy about his interest in taking them upstairs to his room,” it was alleged.

She reportedly stopped by to talk to them, and as they left she “remembered feeling that Hegseth was annoyed.”

The other woman’s memo claimed she “didn’t remember anything until she was in Hegseth’s hotel room and then stumbled to find her hotel room.”

The six to nine hours following his intervention in Hegseth’s flirting with the other women were “very blurry,” the memo said.

When she got home, she “had a moment of vague memory of the rape the night before and had a panic attack,” the memo said.

That’s when she went to the ER and had a rape kit taken that came back positive for semen.

The woman who wrote the memo explained that they had been friends for 15 years and that she “never knew her to be irresponsible, drunk, or ever of questionable character.”

Parlatore argued a very different series of events where the sex was consensual and the woman took advantage of Hegseth.

“Witnesses stated that Mr Hegseth was visibly intoxicated, but the complainant was not as she led him by the arm to his hotel room,” he said.

He claimed they walked out of the bar arm in arm and she was smiling, and when they got to his room, she was “the aggressor in initiating sexual activity.”

The woman planned to tell her husband that she had fallen asleep on a couch in a friend’s room, Parlatore claimed Hegseth told police.

He said the ER investigation “found no evidence that the sexual contact was non-consensual.”

The friend’s memo stated that sometime after police chose not to pursue the case, she and her husband hired an attorney “to ensure that Hegseth was not released without punishment.”

Parlatore said he responded on Feb. 2, 2020, with a cease and desist order, which was provided to the Post.

“Should you choose to proceed with filing a frivolous lawsuit against my client, my client has instructed our office to pursue all available legal remedies against you,” the letter said.

“Both you and Mr. Hegseth have spouses, families and children that you both undoubtedly love dearly, and a public battle is not in anyone’s best interest, especially in a case 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 alleged rape.

The Hegseth woman eventually began negotiating a nondisclosure agreement, which was signed about two and a half years after the alleged rape.

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

The attorney claimed that Hegseth felt it was in his best interest to settle as this was the height of the MeToo movement at the time.

New chief of staff Susie Wiles was informed of the accusation on Wednesday evening. Vanity fair reported.

Wiles and Trump’s lawyers spoke with Hegseth about it on Thursday. Hegseth told them the accusation stemmed from a consensual meeting and called it a “he-said, she-said” situation, a source told Vanity Fair.

Trump stands behind his candidate, according to his staff.

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

“We look forward to his appointment as United States Secretary of Defense so he can get to work on day one to make America safe and great again.”

Hegseth’s appointment to lead the Pentagon is controversial.

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

But many have wondered whether the 44-year-old co-host of “Fox & Friends Weekends” can handle managing the Defense Department, which has an $842 billion budget, nearly three million employees and 750 military installations around the world.

He also has a history of controversial statements, once calling liberals “domestic enemies.”

And he has said women should not be allowed to serve in the U.S. military, a point he has repeatedly emphasized, including last week in an interview with “The Shawn Ryan Show” podcast.

“I’ll just be honest: we shouldn’t have women in combat roles,” Hegseth said on that podcast. “It hasn’t made us more effective, it hasn’t made us more deadly, it hasn’t made fighting more complicated.”

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

Many have wondered if he can win Senate confirmation due to his lack of experience.

As of 2019, Hegseth has been married to his third wife, Fox News producer Jennifer Rauchet. 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 wedding.

Hegseth and his first wife, Meredith Schwarz, divorced in 2009 amid allegations that he cheated.

A year later, Hegseth married Samantha Deering. In 2014, four years after their marriage, Hegseth started working at Fox News.

There he became involved with Jennifer Rauchet, a producer at the network. Rauchet was also married at the beginning of her relationship with Hegseth.

In 2017, the situation became public knowledge. Hegseth was already the father of three children with Deering, and in August 2017 he and Rauchet had a daughter together.

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

An ally of Hegseth blamed the resurfacing of the allegation on members of the Republican Party trying to thwart Hegseth’s nomination.

“They will try to destroy all these nominations before the confirmation vote,” the ally told Vanity Fair.