Police Report Casts Doubt on Sexual Assault Allegation Against Pete Hegseth
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Police Report Casts Doubt on Sexual Assault Allegation Against Pete Hegseth
Gage Skidmore via Flickr
A police report from 2017 released this week via a freedom of information request casts doubt on a sexual assault allegation made against President-Elect Donald Trump’s defense secretary nominee, Pete Hegseth.
The accuser — whose identity is redacted — claimed Hegseth raped her in 2017 after a Republican women’s conference at a hotel in Monterey, California. According to the accuser, it happened after conference organizers went to the hotel bar after an after-party following that day’s conference events.
However, the police report raised questions about the accuser’s claim, with several eyewitness accounts and surveillance video suggesting she and Hegseth had a consensual sexual encounter she was attempting to hide from her husband — who was staying with her at the same hotel along with their children.
Despite the accuser saying she believed that “something may have been slipped into her drink, as she cannot remember most of the night’s events,” surveillance video obtained by police showed she appeared coherent before and after the alleged incident, and she had “locked arms” with Hegseth while smiling. An eyewitness also told police she saw the accuser flirting with Hegseth.
In addition, a hotel worker saw the accuser putting her hand and arm on Hegseth and leading him towards the direction of his hotel room shortly before the alleged rape occurred, and said that Hegseth was “very intoxicated” but that she was not.
The police report also said that a person who appears to be the accuser’s husband told police that after she returned to her hotel room, she said she “must have fallen asleep” somewhere. That tracked with what Hegseth independently told police the accuser said she was going to tell her husband.
Revelations in the police report that cast doubt over the accuser’s rape allegation included:
The accuser said she did not remember how she got in Hegseth’s hotel room, but allegedly remembered details such as Hegseth blocking the door with his body and her allegedly saying “no” a lot, and “not much else.”
There was no evidence of rape, according to the police report.
Earlier in the day of the alleged rape, she texted her husband numerous times about Hegseth, including that the women at the conference were “freaking drooling over him,” and that, “He talks pretty tho.” As the night progressed, she stopped responding to her worried husband’s text messages.
A person whose name is redacted but appears to be the accuser’s husband told police that after the accuser returned to her hotel room, she did not have a hard time walking or and was not slurring her words. The accuser told this person she “must have fallen asleep,” and was apologetic.
The accuser later told police that she remembered asking Hegseth if he had a condom.
The accuser declined to conduct a “pretext” phone call with Hegseth — where she would call him with the police listening to discuss the alleged rape.
A hotel worker told police he received a complaint at approximately 1:30 a.m. from two separate guests that a couple near the pool was causing a disturbance and being loud. The worker went to the pool, and said the accuser apologized for Hegseth’s actions and had put her hand and arm on Hegseth’s back, and walked him away from the pool area towards buildings 4 and 5 — where Hegseth’s room was located.
The worker said Hegseth was “very intoxicated” but the accuser was “standing on her own and was very coherent.”
Hotel surveillance video showed the accuser and Hegseth leaving the hotel bar together at approximately 1:15 a.m., with locked arms and headed towards the pool.
An eyewitness said she saw the accuser flirting with Hegseth, and the flirting “consisted of touching of the body or arm.”
The same eyewitness said she saw the accuser the next morning and that she “did not seem any different and was her normal self.”
While Hegseth said he was “buzzed” but not intoxicated, he told police he was led out the bar but could not remember by whom, but described the person’s clothing, which matched the accuser’s dress.
Hegseth also said he did not remember being chastised for being too loud by the pool, and that he went back to his hotel room with the accuser, but was confused as to why she stayed in his room.
He said “things progressed” between himself and the accuser and that the interaction was consensual. He said they would both stop and say, “we shouldn’t do this,” but things consensually continued. He also confirmed that she asked if he had a condom.
Hegseth told police that the accuser showed “early signs of regret,” and told him she would tell her husband that [she] had fallen asleep on a couch in someone else’s room — which tracks with what a person who appears to be her husband told police that she had initially told him.
Megyn Kelly, a former attorney and Fox News anchor, said on her podcast about the accuser’s allegations after reading the police report, “This smells like utter bullshit.”
“All of this sounds much more consistent with a woman who had a booty call,” she said.
“She took advantage of him. She led him. She was, by all accounts, both video and eyewitness, she was sober. He was drunk. She grabbed him. She took him to his room. She’s like walking arm in arm with him. And really putting it on, and she gets him into his room. And then the police honestly, when they looked at it, even though she was the one that reported it, when they looked at the video, they considered charging her,” he told Breitbart News in a phone interview on November 16.
Gage Skidmore via Flickr