Pete Hegseth says he was blackmailed into paying off rape accuser

The election of newly elected President Donald Trump as Secretary of Defense Piet Hegseth says he was blackmailed during the #MeToo movement and paid off a prosecutor to keep her quiet, his attorney Timothy Parlatore tells The Post.

Hegseth, who worked as a host for Fox News until Trump picked him for his Cabinet, paid an undisclosed sum to a woman who accused him of sexual assault, which he said was consensual, his lawyer confirmed.

“In fact, he was completely innocent. He did nothing wrong here,” Parlatore said. “We went through mediation and ultimately settled for much less than what she wanted. And that should have buried it completely.”

Last week, Trump’s transition team received a memo from a friend of the prosecutor laying out the allegations against Trump’s surprise pick to lead the Defense Department. reported the Washington Post.

The alleged incident took place on October 7, 2017 in Monterey, California, and involved an unidentified associate of a conservative group who accused Hegseth, now 44, of raping her in his hotel room after a drunken night at the bar. She was in her thirties at the time.

At the time, Hegseth was staying at the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa after speaking at the California Federation of Republican Women conference.

Parlatore, who declined to reveal the amount paid or the woman’s identity, claimed she was sober and chased Hegseth.

“He had way too much to drink, and according to video surveillance and eyewitness testimony, this woman, who was sober, took advantage of him and was the aggressor,” he said.

“She took him by the arm and led him to his room.”

But the memo of the incident sent to the transition team, which The Post has not independently obtained, alleged that she was responsible for Hegseth returning to his room and to the airport the next day, according to the Washington Post.

She was staying at the hotel with her children and husband at the time. After receiving text messages from two women at the bar claiming that “Hegseth was becoming pushy about his interest in taking them upstairs to his room,” she decided to intervene, the memo said.

The accuser “had a vague memory of the rape the night before and had a panic attack,” the memo said.

A friend of the plaintiff said she had seen her at events over the past 15 years but “never knew her to be irresponsible, drunk or ever of questionable character.”

Parlatore claimed that the accuser was simply trying to save face for her husband.

“She woke up to a bunch of texts from her husband saying, ‘Why didn’t you come back to our room?’ Then she had to come back and lie,” he added, citing a police report that is not publicly available.

Days after the encounter, the accuser later filed a complaint with police, who investigated the situation and ultimately declined to file charges with the local district attorney.

Two years later, in 2020, the accuser threatened to sue Hegseth in court, resulting in his settlement payment to her in exchange for the woman signing a non-disclosure agreement.

“If she were to come out and start repeating these false claims, or if this were to derail the confirmation in any way, then we would likely see a pretty significant lawsuit against her for defamation, civil conduct and racketeering,” Parlatore said.

Hegseth, an Army veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, is widely seen as an unconventional choice to take the reins at the Pentagon given his lack of experience leading a large organization.

The 78-year-old Trump chose Hegseth, who has degrees from Princeton and Harvard, with the aim of dramatically shaking up the Pentagon and eliminating the U.S. armed forces’ diversity, equity and inclusion practices.

So far, the president-elect is sticking with his DOD candidate despite the allegations surprised his transition team.

“President Trump is nominating highly qualified and extremely qualified candidates to serve in his administration,” Trump campaign director Steven Cheung said in a statement.

“Sir. Hegseth has strongly denied all allegations and no charges have been filed. We look forward to his appointment as United States Secretary of Defense so that he can get to work on day one to make America safe and great again.”

The Post was unable to identify the accuser to determine her version of events.