More from the party of rapist'sRus
DENY, DENY, DENY
Fox News anchor Pete Hegseth’s attorney claims the woman Hegseth allegedly assaulted in California in 2017 was actually “the aggressor” and he only paid the woman off to avoid getting fired.
Hegseth’s attorney Tim Parlatore told Breitbart News the woman had dragged a drunken Hegseth to her room after a Republican conference in Monterey, California. He also suggested the woman violated him and claimed police threatened to charge her for coming forward, though he offered the outlet no evidence to support his claim. Police have not confirmed Parlatore’s assertions, and Hegseth has not been charged.
The candid accusation mirrored Parlatore’s comments to The Washington Post on Saturday, which broke the news that Hegseth paid the woman to protect his job. Hegseth co-anchored Fox & Friends Weekend and resigned after Trump nominated him for secretary of defense.
“He is completely and totally innocent,” Parlatore told Breitbart. “It was completely investigated. She was the aggressor.”
Parlatore claimed the woman was sober and walked with Hegseth “arm in arm” to his hotel room “and really putting it on.”
“And she gets him into his room,” he said. “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.”
“But that didn’t go anywhere, because obviously Pete’s not gonna sit there and say, ‘I was raped,’” Parlatore added.
Parlatore, a former Trump attorney, admitted to the Post on Saturday Hegseth paid the woman after she came forward with legal threats in 2020, though only because he was afraid Fox News would fire him—and after he sent her a cease and desist letter.
The Army veteran’s attorney also told Breitbart he suspected a member of President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team of leaking details of the incident to try and tank his nomination, though he offered no details on who that would be. Trump’s incoming communications director, Steven Cheung, praised Hegseth as one of Trump’s “high-caliber and extremely qualified” nominees.
“We look forward to his confirmation as United States Secretary of Defense so he can get started on Day One to Make America Safe and Great Again,” he wrote.
Hegseth’s attorney, Timothy Parlatore, said that Hegseth was “visibly intoxicated” at the time of the incident, and maintained that police who were contacted a few days after the encounter by the woman concluded that “the Complainant had been the aggressor in the encounter.” Police have not confirmed that assertion.
The accuser, whose identity has not been made public, filed a complaint with the police alleging she was sexually assaulted days after the Oct. 7, 2017, encounter in Monterey, California, but the local district attorney did not bring charges. Police confirmed that they investigated the incident. After she threatened litigation in 2020, Hegseth made the payment and she signed the nondisclosure agreement, his attorney said.
The detailed four-page memo about the incident has set off debate among senior Trump transition officials, but so far Trump has stood behind Hegseth. Spokesman Steven Cheung earlier this week said: “President Trump is nominating high-caliber and extremely qualified candidates to serve in his Administration. Mr. Hegseth has vigorously denied any and all accusations, and no charges were filed. We look forward to his confirmation as United States Secretary of Defense so he can get started on Day One to Make America Safe and Great Again.”
Hegseth, whose second wife had filed for divorce the previous month, had traveled to Monterey to speak to a California Federation of Republican Women conference. Afterward, according to his lawyer, he went to the hotel bar with a group of attendees.
The memo sent to the Trump team, the details of which have not been previously reported, said that the woman identified in the memo only as “Jane Doe” was there with the California Federation of Republican Women. The woman was staying at the hotel with her small children and her husband, according to the memo, which laid out the woman’s complaint.
At some point in the evening, the complaint alleged, Jane Doe received a text from two women at the bar who told her that “Hegseth was getting pushy about his interest in taking them upstairs to his room.” Jane Doe, who was nearby, came over and talked to those two women, and after they left, she “remembered sensing that Hegseth was irritated,” the memo said.
What happened next is in dispute.
According to the memo, Jane Doe “didn’t remember anything until she was in Hegseth’s hotel room and then stumbling to find her hotel room.” The memo said that her memory of six to nine hours “was very hazy,” and that her husband was searching for her and was relieved when she finally showed up.
The following day, the woman returned home and “had a moment of hazy memory of being raped the night before, and had a panic attack,” the memo said.
The woman then went to the emergency room, where she received a rape-kit examination that “was positive for semen,” the memo said. The woman gave county authorities a statement about what happened, according to the memo sent to the transition team.
Hegseth’s lawyer also alleged that the medical examination of the woman “produced no evidence that the sexual contact was nonconsensual” and that a police investigation found no evidence to support charging Hegseth..
Dean Flippo, the Monterey County district attorney at the time of the incident, said in an interview Saturday that he had no recollection of the allegations. He said he had never heard Hegseth’s name until he read the news of his potential nomination for the Pentagon job.
“I just have no recollection of the incident at all and hadn’t heard the name before,” he said.
Flippo, who ran the office for nearly 30 years until January 2019, said he would counsel his staff to alert him if a case had the potential to become high-profile, such as allegations involving Hollywood stars. “I would hope my staff would see that if something had the potential of publicity that they would let me know so we could prepare to handle that. But I just have no recollection of that in this instance,” he said.
Flippo, now in his mid 80s, said the office took allegations of sexual assault seriously, collected as much evidence as possible and tried cases it thought it could prove. “Is there proof beyond a reasonable doubt? That’s what we have as a responsibility in our business. That’s what goes into the question of do we go ahead.”
The current district attorney, Jeannine Pacioni, did not respond to a request for comment.
Sometime after the incident, the woman and her husband hired a lawyer “to ensure Hegseth didn’t get off without punishment,” according to the memo sent to the transition team. Hegseth’s lawyer proposed they sign a nondisclosure agreement, the details of which have not been made public, the memo said. The agreement was signed about 2½ years after the alleged assault, Hegseth’s lawyer said.
Hegseth’s attorney said that two years after the incident the woman “began to make noise” about filing a lawsuit, prompting Hegseth’s attorney to send a cease-and-desist letter.
Parlatore provided a copy of that letter to The Post, dated Feb. 2, 2020, with the recipient’s name redacted, in which he wrote that “should you choose to proceed with the filing of a frivolous lawsuit against my client, my client has directed our firm to pursue all available remedies against you.” The letter went on to say: “Both you and Mr. Hegseth have spouses, families and children that you undoubtedly both love very much and a public fight is not in anyone’s best interest — especially in a case like this where both the law and the facts are against.”
In December 2020, the woman hired a lawyer who entered into negotiations about the matter, Hegseth’s lawyer said. In his statement, the lawyer said that “Hegseth strongly felt that he was the victim of blackmail and innocent collateral damage in a lie that the Complainant was holding onto to keep her marriage intact.”
However, “knowing that it was the height of the MeToo movement,” Hegseth “ultimately decided to enter into a settlement for a significantly reduced amount.” The statement did not specify the requested or reduced amount, or when it was paid.
