Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, was forced to leave two veterans advocacy groups he ran due to serious allegations against him.
The New Yorker reports that Hegseth was forced to step down from Veterans for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America over allegations of sexual impropriety, personal misconduct, and financial mismanagement.
According to a seven-page whistleblower report from Hegseth’s time as president of the CVA from 2013 to 2016, the former Fox News host was repeatedly intoxicated while working in his official capacity, even needing to be carried out of organizational events. At one point, a heavily intoxicated Hegseth had to be physically restrained from joining dancers onstage at a Louisiana strip club, where he had brought his team.
“A Fox News contributor, with the rank of captain (at the time) in the National Guard, and the CEO of a veterans’ organization … was in a strip club trying to dance with strippers,” the whistleblower wrote.
The report also stated that Hegseth, who was married at the time, and the rest of his management team sexually pursued women who worked for the CVA, and even divided them into “party girls” and “not party girls.” According to the report, the organization ignored accusations of impropriety from staff members, including one of sexual assault.
In one letter of complaint sent to the CVA in 2015, a former CVA employee said that Hegseth was drunk in a Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio bar early in the morning of May 29, 2015, while on an official tour, chanting, “Kill All Muslims! Kill All Muslims!”
The author of the letter told The New Yorker, “If you print that, I will deny I wrote it.” When told that it came from the same personal email account that he still uses, he said, “I don’t care. I’ll just say it never happened.” Hegseth was pressured into resigning from the organization in January 2016.
During Hegseth’s team in charge, Veterans for Freedom also ran up serious debts. Only one year later, VFF couldn’t afford to pay its creditors, with the group’s donors, Republican billionaires Bernard Marcus, Jerry Perenchio, and Harold Simmons, concerned over what their money was being spent on.
That concern was more than justified, as their money was apparently being spent on wild parties rife with sexual impropriety. The three donors hired a forensic accountant, and Hegseth admitted in January 2008 that the organization had $434,833 in unpaid bills, less than $1,000 in the bank, and credit card debts of as much as $75,000. The donors eventually arranged a merger with another veterans’ organization and drastically reduced Hegseth’s role.
These new revelations raise significant questions about whether Hegseth is fit to run the world’s most powerful military, particularly in light of the sexual assault allegations against him and his extreme personal views. While Trump’s team is already compiling a list of alternative nominees, it’s unknown as to whether Trump will double down on supporting Hegseth.
