The Morning: Is Pete Hegseth doomed?

Overnight, a detailed police report on the sexual assault allegations against Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth was released.

And those details look very, very bad for Hegseth.

Here’s CNN:

A California woman told police that Trump Cabinet pick Pete Hegseth physically blocked her from leaving a hotel room, took her phone, and then sexually assaulted her even though she “remembered saying ‘no’ a lot,” a police report obtained by CNN shows.

Hegseth — via his attorney — has acknowledged paying the woman in question to ensure her silence. But, he has insisted that he did nothing wrong — that it was a consensual, uh, coming together and that he only paid her because he was afraid he would be fired by Fox News if the allegations came to light.

In many ways, this is an absolutely typical Washington scandal. Lots of past Cabinet nominees have been derailed by allegations of inappropriate conduct which only came to light when they were picked for some major role in an administration.

And by the rules of political gravity that governed those past nominees, this should doom Hegseth. But, we are, in so many ways, through the looking glass when it comes to politics these days.

Donald Trump has repeatedly defied political gravity — and smashed long-held political rules — during his decade of running for president. The question now is whether Trump’s nominees have that same ability —or whether they will be brought low by the Way Washington Works.

Two things to watch in the next few days that will tell us a lot about Hegseth’s fate:

1. Does Trump himself or some close Trump ally say something publicly that suggests Hegseth is more of a hindrance than a help to the president-elect at this point?

2. Do any Republican Senators go on the record with their reservations about moving forward with Hegseth given what we now know about the incident?

If either — or both — of those things happens, it’s likely curtains for Hegseth. If not, then he may well live to fight for the Defense job for another week.

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