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Pete Hegseth’s nomination as secretary of defense has continued to barrel toward confirmation, additional stream of details of his patent unfitness for office be damned. Indeed, Senate Republicans seem determined to elevate Donald Trump’s nominee to one of the most powerful positions in government despite more reporting around his alleged rampant abuse of women and alcohol, with a full vote expected as soon as this Friday after he was advanced out of the Armed Services Committee this week on a party-line vote. Having declined to take seriously their obligation to investigate reports of his unfitness, Republicans on the committee are now refusing to credit named witnesses who are offering them credible information by taking the position that everything negative disclosed about their man is by definition a lie.
Last week at his confirmation hearing, Hegseth stated under oath that every single allegation of misconduct was an “anonymous smear.” One of those “anonymous smears” came from his own mother. And now, according to new reporting in the New York Times, Danielle Diettrich Hegseth, his former sister-in-law, “submitted a sworn statement to senators on Tuesday that accused Mr. Hegseth … of being so ‘abusive’ toward his second wife that she once hid in a closet from him and had a safe word to call for help if she needed to get away from him.” Diettrich Hegseth says she spoke with FBI agents during Hegseth’s background investigation, but her information didn’t make its way into the report received on the Hill.
According to the Times, the former wife of Hegseth’s brother filed this affidavit describing the future head of the Pentagon as having exhibited “erratic and aggressive” behavior that caused his then-wife to fear for her safety. That document, reviewed by the Armed Services Committee and the Times, contains yet more allegations that Hegseth “frequently drank to excess both in public and private, including on one occasion … when he was wearing his military uniform.” It further alleged that his second wife hid from him in her closet, and that he believed women should not work or be allowed to vote.
Not one thing about these new allegations is surprising. The New Yorker, the New York Times, and other media outlets have reported consistently and broadly about Hegseth’s alcoholism and mistreatment of women, as well as his revanchist views about Muslims and frequent, public blackout drinking. There is also an allegation of sexual assault that was never charged but was reported and investigated, around which both parties have signed a nondisclosure agreement. What is, frankly, remarkable about Diettrich Hegseth’s new allegations is that she has affixed her name to them, and that they are in the possession of the FBI and the Senate. All of this would have, in a saner time, ended the nominee’s chances at confirmation. (Hegseth has said he will not drink while serving as secretary of defense if he’s confirmed; his ex-wife Samantha allegedly told the FBI that “He drinks more often than he doesn’t.”)
But what is even more staggering is that in the face of this new information, the decision has been taken by Senate Republicans to discredit it, ignore it, and to charge ahead with a confirmation in spite of it. As the Times puts it, “just hours after the affidavit was filed, Republican leaders plowed ahead on Tuesday night to schedule a vote on Mr. Hegseth’s confirmation, with several rank-and-file members of the party dismissing the sworn statement as a desperate attempt at character assassination that would fail.”
Let us be clear. Yet again. Senate confirmation hearings are not criminal trials. This is, fundamentally, a job interview to determine a nominee’s fitness for office. There is no “American presumption of innocence,” and there is no standard of proof that shifts a legal burden to the accuser to prove her claims. These confirmation hearings are systems created, at least in theory, to test facts and allegations and to ask questions about those allegations. The hearings, put simply, are meant to be directed at learning the truth. Yet despite the U.S. Senate’s awesome power to amass evidence, call witnesses, test allegations, and create a record, the Republicans of the Armed Services Committee have elected to dismiss every part of the new reporting as false. Senate Republicans are ignoring red-flag indicators and will not be able to profess surprise if more surfaces or the behaviors continue once Hegseth is in office.
Per the Times, Sen. Roger Wicker, who chairs the Armed Services Committee, said that “he did not expect the new disclosures to threaten Mr. Hegseth’s confirmation, and that the Senate would work into the weekend if necessary to ensure his swift approval.” As he explained to reporters, “I think the nomination is going to go forward,” adding that while he had not reviewed the affidavit, he had “grave doubts as to the substance” and believed that its author “has an ax to grind.”
So there we have it. The man who chairs this committee, never having reviewed the affidavit, dismisses it as false, and brushes off the witness, a woman, as not credible. Despite the fact that the nominee’s claim of a series of “anonymous smears” is further proven categorically false, yet another extremely credible allegation is dismissed out of hand without any further inquiry because, as is almost the norm now, women are not credited as truthful, nor given a full opportunity to be heard.
Hegseth’s ex-wife has offered up a carefully lawyered response to this latest piece of information from her former sister-in-law: “First and foremost, I have not and will not comment on my marriage to Pete Hegseth. I do not have representatives speaking on my behalf, nor have I ever asked anyone to share or speak about the details of my marriage on my behalf, whether it be a reporter, a committee member, a transition team member, etc.” She further told Diettrich Hegseth, “I do not believe your information to be accurate, and I have cc’d my lawyer,” adding, “There was no physical abuse in my marriage.”
Saying there was no physical abuse does little to counter the sworn allegations by Danielle Diettrich Hegseth. She did not say that Hegseth physically abused his former wife, so that statement actually does not prove their falsity at all. Her affidavit claims that Hegseth was abusive toward his ex-wife, which is far broader than physical abuse, and equally suggestive of a lack of fitness to serve.
If Republican senators were committed to fulfilling their obligation to advise and consent to President Trump’s nominees, they would want to know the truth; indeed they would insist upon it. At a minimum, it would be of interest to Republican members of the Armed Services Committee that the man who has been nominated to run the Defense Department is a known abuser of alcohol who is frequently abusive and threatening toward women. It increasingly appears that the campaign promise to “protect all women” can only be achieved by silencing them first. Hegseth’s record should be disqualifying. Instead the Republican posture is that anyone who brings forward evidence against Trump’s pick to head the Pentagon is presumptively a discredited liar, not to be believed. Perhaps Senate Republicans believe that the sooner the confirmation happens, the faster they can immunize their nominee from the truth. But if you are only willing to accept the version of the facts that comes from your own team, your hearing fails to fulfill your constitutional obligations. It’s merely a rubber stamp and a whitewash.
Assuming this week plays out as it appears destined to, once Hegseth is in office, all of us will have to live with a system of fact-finding that now has absolutely no interest in actual facts.
