By The Federalist (Politics) | Created at 2024-11-21 18:41:24 | Updated at 2024-11-22 00:30:35
5 hours ago
Disclaimer: This article discusses explicit sexual acts.
What you’re going to hear now and in the coming days from the national media is that there are “graphic” details in a police report related to an alleged sexual assault involving Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming nominee for Defense secretary. It’s certainly graphic, but the media will bet you won’t bother reading the report, which in reality looks really bad for the alleged victim and effectively clears Hegseth of criminality.
The 22-page report details an incident from seven years ago when in 2017, Hegseth, then a Fox News celebrity, attended an event for a Republican women’s group as a featured speaker. The way the media have relayed the event so far is that a woman in attendance has accused Hegseth of drugging her at an afterparty before raping her in his hotel room. Outside of the alleged victim’s admittedly incomplete recollection, none of the testimony or evidence included in the police report supports that claim. In truth, all of it indicates that the accuser lied to her husband, who was in her hotel room, while she galavanted at night with Hegseth and other attendees before voluntarily joining him in his room to have consensual sex.
The report’s events took place in early October 2017, and it includes multiple eyewitness testimonies and text message evidence of what took place before and after the alleged assault. The alleged victim is identified only as Jane Doe. After a night of moderate drinking, during which Doe says she at some point felt she may have been surreptitiously drugged, Doe said she remembered few details but that she recalled inexplicably finding herself in Hegseth’s hotel room, that he ejaculated on her body, and that she thereafter went to her own room to join an unnamed person in bed. Text messages she shared with police indicate the person was her husband and that there were other parties in the room, likely children.
Doe ended up in contact with police after she saw a medical provider to administer a sexual assault exam. The provider was required by California law to tell police of the allegation that was shared by Doe.
Doe told police she didn’t recall drinking heavily that day but then later said she did and that at some point she confronted Hegseth by the hotel pool about the way he had behaved with other women that night, which she found “inappropriate.” She would also later tell police that she recalled asking Hegseth in his hotel room if he had a condom.
And that’s the exact point you know things have taken a turn out of her favor.
The rest of the report is an overwhelming refutation of that version of events. Included are text exchanges with her husband, wherein she repeatedly mentions Hegseth, but omits that she was spending time with him at the after-parties; testimonies from other women in attendance who said Doe never appeared overserved and in fact seemed completely coherent throughout; surveillance video footage that showed Doe and Hegseth walking around with locked arms; and a hotel staff member who recalled engaging Doe and Hegseth by the pool, at which time Hegseth was belligerent and Doe guided Hegseth away from the conflict.
The report ends with Hegseth’s version of events, in which he admits he only initiated sex with Doe after she took him to his room and says that the two of them repeatedly expressed reservations about the intimacy. He said that the two of them agreed the affair needed to remain secret. If there’s one corroborated piece of Doe’s story, it’s that Hegseth also recalled that she asked him if he had a condom.
Some key moments in the report:
— “JANE DOE stated she used a condom when she had sex with” her husband after the alleged assault. The explanation for that is redacted, but thereafter the report says, “JANE DOE stated she had a vaginal discharge and was diagnosed with bacterial vaginosis,” a condition that “can be caused by having multiple sex partners.”
— Text messages with her husband, who was at the conference, show Doe asking him if he was familiar with Hegseth, referring to him as “TDB lite” and “Mini TDB,” which appear to be meant as insults. Doe’s husband replies, “Oh you mean the man who tried to have sex with my wife?” and “Not a good first impression for Pete.”
— Doe’s husband told police it was 4 a.m. when his wife returned to their shared room. “JANE DOE arrived at their hotel room, accessed the room on her own and had used the key card reader to get in,” the report said. “JANE DOE told [her husband] that she ‘Must have fallen asleep.’ JANE DOE was apologetic.” Her husband “noticed that JANE DOE did not have a hard time walking and was not slurring her words.”
— A hotel staff member told police he encountered Doe and Hegseth at the pool and “JANE DOE placed her hand and arm on the back of HEGSETH” and “escorted him” away. The staffer described Hegseth as “very intoxicated.” By contrast, he said Doe was “not intoxicated” and in fact “standing on her own and was very coherent.”
— Of the hotel surveillance video, the report said, “The video showed JANE DOE and HEGSETH walking together, with arms locked together.”
Hegseth’s testimony also goes into detail about what happened in his hotel room, and he maintains it was consensual. No charges were ever brought, and Hegseth paid the woman a settlement fee at the time to make the drama go away.
Nobody should be left with questions about what happened here. All of the evidence indicates Hegseth was pursued by a married woman who then regretted her decision. (I’m sure the vaginal discharge didn’t help.)
