President-elect Donald Trump’s choose for Secretary of Protection Pete Hegseth says he was blackmailed in the course of the #MeToo motion, and paid off an accuser to maintain her silent, his lawyer Timothy Parlatore tells The Put up.
Hegseth, who labored as Fox Information host till Trump picked him for his Cupboard, paid an undisclosed quantity to a lady who accused him of sexual assault, which he maintains was consensual, his lawyer confirmed.
“Mainly, he was completely harmless. He did nothing unsuitable right here,” Parlatore mentioned. “We went by a mediation and finally settled for a lot lower than what she wished. And that ought to have utterly buried it.”
Final week, the Trump transition group acquired a memo from a good friend of the accuser who detailed the accusations in opposition to Trump’s shock choose to guide the Division of Protection, the Washington Put up reported.
The alleged incident happened on Oct. 7, 2017, in Monterey, California, and concerned an unidentified staffer at a conservative group who accused Hegseth, now 44, of raping her in his resort room after a boozy night time on the bar. She was in her 30s on the time.
Hegseth had been staying on the Hyatt Regency Monterey Lodge and Spa on the time after delivering an deal with on the California Federation of Republican Ladies convention.
Parlatore, who declined to expose the quantity paid or the identification of the lady, claimed that she was sober and pursued Hegseth.
“He had means too many drinks, and in response to video surveillance and eyewitness testimony, this girl who was sober, took benefit of him, and she or he was the aggressor,” he mentioned.
“She took him by the arm and she or he led him as much as his room.”
However the memo of the incident despatched to the transition group, which The Put up has not independently obtained, alleged that she was chargeable for making certain that Hegseth made it again to his room and to the airport the subsequent day, in response to the Washington Put up.
She was staying within the resort along with her kids and husband on the time. After receiving texts from two girls on the bar who claimed “Hegseth was getting pushy about his curiosity in taking them upstairs to his room,” she determined to intervene, per the memo.
The accuser “had a second of hazy reminiscence of being raped the night time earlier than, and had a panic assault,” in response to the memo.
A good friend of the accuser mentioned that she had seen her at occasions over the previous 15 years however had “by no means recognized her to be irresponsible, drunk, or ever of questionable character.”
Parlatore alleged that the accuser was merely making an attempt to save lots of face along with her husband.
“She woke as much as a complete bunch of texts from her husband saying, ‘Why didn’t you come again to our room?’ Afterward, she needed to come again and lie,” he added, citing a police report that isn’t publicly out there.
Days after the encounter, the accuser later filed a grievance to the police, who investigated the scenario and finally, the native district lawyer declined to pursue costs.
Two years later, in 2020, the accuser threatened to pursue Hegseth in courtroom, which resulted in his settlement cost to her in trade for the lady signing a non-disclosure settlement.
“If she have been to come back out and begin repeating these false claims, or if this in any means derails the affirmation, then, yeah we’ll in all probability be following a reasonably large lawsuit in opposition to her for defamation and civil and extortion,” Parlatore mentioned.
Hegseth, an Military veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, is broadly seen as an unconventional option to take cost on the Pentagon given his lack of expertise managing a big group.
Trump, 78, selected Hegseth, who has levels from Princeton and Harvard, with the intention of dramatically shaking up the Pentagon, and eliminating the Range, Fairness and Inclusion practices from America’s armed forces.
To date the president-elect is sticking along with his DOD nominee amid the accusations, which caught his transition group without warning.
“President Trump is nominating high-caliber and intensely certified candidates to serve in his Administration,” Trump marketing campaign communications director Steven Cheung mentioned in a press release.
“Mr. Hegseth has vigorously denied any and all accusations, and no costs have been filed. We sit up for his affirmation as United States Secretary of Protection so he can get began on Day One to Make America Secure and Nice Once more.”
The Put up was unable to determine the accuser to succeed in out for her model of occasions.
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