Former Fox News host Pete Hegseth’s lawyer on Sunday validated to NBC News that Hegseth, whom President- select Donald Trump has truly known as as his prospect for defense assistant, paid a feminine a hid amount after she implicated him of sexual offense.
“In 2023, Hegseth paid the complainant as part of a civil confidential settlement agreement and maintains his innocence,” Timothy Parlatore, Hegseth’s lawyer, said in a declaration.
He moreover refuted that the expertise in between Hegseth and an unrevealed woman, which she affirms taken place in 2017, was sexual offense.
Parlatore’s declaration follows The Washington Post on Saturday reported that a friend of Hegseth’s accuser sent a memo to the Trump change group outlining the accusations.
NBC News has truly not individually examined the memorandum, nonetheless Parlatore validated that it belongs to an expertise Hegseth and the unrevealed woman had in Monterey, California, all through a seminar of the California Federation of Republican Women.
The Post reported that the memorandum said the woman went to the seminar together with her accomplice and her children and “didn’t remember anything until she was in Hegseth’s hotel room and then stumbling to find her hotel room” on the night involved.
Parlatore refuted the accusation, stating, “This is a situation where a consensual encounter occurred and, unfortunately, the woman had to come up with a lie to explain why the woman had not come back to her husband’s room that night.”
“It wasn’t reported until days later until there was pressure from her husband. It was fully investigated by police and video surveillance as well as multiple eyewitness statements show that she was the aggressor,” he included.
Authorities in Monterey explored the accusation in 2017 and didn’t submit prices versus Hegseth.
Parlatore moreover known as his buyer “completely innocent” and implicated the woman of “trying to squeeze Mr. Hegseth for money.”
Before Hegseth formally involves be safety assistant, he’ll must sway a bulk of the Senate in a verification poll.
On Sunday,Sen Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla, knowledgeable NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that “I think he’s a good pick.”
Still, he included that the Senate would definitely must ponder and assess Hegseth’s doc prematurely of a poll.
“But once again, as allegations come out, we’ll figure out if, as the Senate moves forward with the advice and consent to the president of the United States and doing our constitutional duties, we’ll figure out if he can get confirmed or not. And I do think that Pete’s a good pick for this position,” Mullin said.
