The most unhappy person that Matt Gaetz dropped his bid to be Donald Trump’s Attorney General (other than Gaetz himself) is Pete Hegseth.
Hegseth, the former Fox News host, is Trump’s pick to be the next Secretary of Defense. And, even before Gaetz got out, Hegseth was getting a fair amount of attention — and not the good kind.
He admitted last week that he had paid off a woman who alleged that in 2017 he had sexually assaulted her. This week the 22-page police report came out — including allegations that Hegseth had blocked the woman from leaving a hotel room, that he had taken her phone and that she remembers repeatedly telling him “no.”
Hegseth has said the liaison was consensual. And he rightly noted that the authorities investigated — and no charges were filed. “As far as the media is concerned, I’ll keep this very simple,” Hegseth said on Thursday. “The matter was fully investigated, and I was completely cleared, and that’s where I’m going to leave it.”
Which is fine. But remember this: These nominations are fought and decided not in a court of law but in the court of public opinion. And that is a very different standard.
Right now what Senators know about Hegseth is: a) he paid the woman off b) the police report looks bad and c) he denies he did anything wrong.
“A” and “B” don’t look good for him. Which doesn’t mean he can’t be confirmed. The odds on the political betting market Kalshi are (still) better than 50-50 for him:
But, without Gaetz to attract all the attention (and all the reporting resources), Hegseth is going to get even more scrutiny. It remains to be seen if he can wade through it — but the next few weeks could be tough for him.
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