An attorney for Pete Hegseth, the Fox News host and President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, confirmed to NPR that Hegseth had paid a woman who accused him of sexual assault in order to prevent her from filing a lawsuit that could damage his career.

Hegseth, 44, has denied the woman’s allegations. The incident took place in 2017.

The Washington Post reported Saturday that Hegseth’s lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, had said in a statement, Hegseth reached a settlement with his accuser, including paying her an unknown amount of money in exchange for her signing a nondisclosure agreement. This arrangement was intended to stop her from filing a lawsuit and to protect Hegseth’s position at Fox News, the Post reported.

Hegseth’s lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, told NPR on Monday that the information attributed to him was accurate, which first reported news of the settlement. According to the Post article, a friend of the woman had shared information about the incident in a memo sent to the Trump transition team last week. NPR has not independently confirmed the contents of the memo.

No charges were filed, Trump team says

“President Trump is nominating high-caliber and extremely qualified candidates to serve in his Administration,” Trump Communications Director Steven Cheung said in a statement to NPR.

Hegseth’s nomination will go forward, Cheung said.

“Mr. Hegseth has vigorously denied any and all accusations, and no charges were filed,” he said. “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.”

Trump has himself been convicted of falsifying business records connected to hush money payments, to adult-film star Stormy Daniels, a case he claims is politically motivated.

What is Hegseth accused of?

In 2017, Hegseth was named in an investigation by the Monterey Police Department concerning a reported sexual assault at a golf resort in California. According to a statement from city officials, Hegseth acknowledges having sexual intercourse with the woman but insists it was consensual.

The incident occurred in the early hours of Oct. 8 at 1 Old Golf Course Road, which is the address of Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa. Police say the woman reported an injury to her right thigh. Their news release does not disclose the alleged victim’s name or age; however, she was 30 at the time and worked for the California Federation of Republican Women, assisting with logistics while Hegseth spoke at their conference.

She was staying at the hotel with her husband.

Hegseth’s relationship status at the time was complicated: in 2017, his second wife filed for a divorce “around the same time” he and his current wife had a baby, according to The Washington Examiner.

In his statement to the Post, Parlatore says that Hegseth had been drinking at the hotel bar and was intoxicated when he went to his hotel room with the woman. According to the Post, the memo from the woman’s friend said that the woman took Hegseth to the room after being informed that he was being a nuisance to other women. A few days later, she contacted the police to report a sexual assault.

After the woman hired an attorney a couple of years later to consider a lawsuit, both parties reached an agreement. Parlatore noted in his statement to the Post that the MeToo movement was gaining momentum at the time, and he told CBS News that Hegseth would have faced “an immediate horror storm” had he been publicly accused of sexual assault, a quote that Parlatore confirmed to NPR.

The incident in Monterey occurred about a year after Fox News settled with former Fox & Friends co-host Gretchen Carlson for $20 million over her sexual harassment claims against the network’s former chairman, Roger Ailes. Between early 2017 and 2020, the network experienced several high-profile departures linked to misconduct, including hosts Bill O’Reilly and Eric Bolling, Washington correspondent James Rosen and news host Ed Henry.

Hegseth is known for his TV work, and loyalty to Trump

When Hegseth was nominated last week, his selection seemingly surprised several Republican lawmakers; as NPR reported, his name was not on the known shortlist of potential nominees. But it continued a pattern of Trump’s placing loyalists and Fox News personalities in prominent positions.

Trump’s selection has put Hegseth, who lives in Tennessee with his wife and seven children, under intense scrutiny.

Prominent Democrats and military experts have raised questions that range from the meaning of his tattoos and political ethos to whether Hegseth is qualified to oversee the country’s largest employer. The Defense Department has “more than 2.1 million Military Service members and over 770 thousand civilian employees,” according to a 2020 fiscal report.

Hegseth is a Minnesota native who served as an officer in the Army National Guard, leaving service as a major in 2021 after deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, according to his official biography. He earned a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University in 2013.

Those questioning Hegseth’s qualifications include Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., the ranking member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense.

“I have great respect for anyone who has served our nation in the U.S. Armed Forces. However, not everyone who has worn the uniform is qualified to lead the Department of Defense,” McCollum said in a statement, adding that she is concerned that Hegseth “is ill-prepared to serve as Secretary of Defense.”

Military has its own sexual assault issues

If confirmed, Hegseth would lead a U.S. military that has been trying to reduce the alarming rates of sexual assaults from military academies to overseas deployments.

In a notable shift, the Defense Department implemented a change earlier this year that grants independent military lawyers the authority to handle sexual assault cases,
removing these matters from the chains of command of either the accused or the victim.

This change to the military justice system was backed by the current defense secretary Lloyd Austin.

Source: Election results are from The Associated Press.

By The New York Times election results team: Michael Andre, Emma Baker, Neil Berg, Andrew Chavez, Michael Beswetherick, Matthew Bloch, Lily Boyce, Irineo Cabreros, Nico Chilla, Nate Cohn, Alastair Coote, Annie Daniel, Saurabh Datar, Leo Dominguez, Tiff Fehr, Andrew Fischer, Martín González Gómez, Joyce Ho, Will Houp, Jon Huang, Junghye Kim, K.K. Rebecca Lai, Jasmine C. Lee, Joey K. Lee, Vivian Li, Alex Lemonides, Ilana Marcus, Alicia Parlapiano, Jaymin Patel, Dan Simmons-Ritchie, Charlie Smart, Jonah Smith, Urvashi Uberoy, Isaac White and Christine Zhang

Additional contributions by Grace Ashford, Luke Broadwater, Mathew Brownstein, Amanda Cordero Kenan Davis, Karoun Demirjian, Robert Draper, Catie Edmondson, Nick Fandos, Lalena Fisher, Patrick Hays, Robert Jimison, Annie Karni, Maya Miller, Julie Walton Shaver, Jaime Tanner, Tracey Tully, Lisa Waananen Jones and Jessica White

Edited by Wilson Andrews, Lindsey Rogers Cook, William P. Davis, Jonathan Ellis, Thomas Gaffney, Amy Hughes, Ben Koski, Allison McCartney and Rachel Shorey

Source: Election results are from The Associated Press.

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Sir Keir Starmer has declined to rule out allowing Ukraine to use UK-made Storm Shadow cruise missiles for strikes inside Russia, after President Joe Biden authorised the use of US-supplied long-range weapons.

The UK prime minister said he did not want to get into “operational details” about the proposal, arguing the only beneficiary would be Russian president Vladimir Putin.

His intervention came amid a flurry of diplomatic activity as British defence secretary John Healey spoke to his American counterpart Lloyd Austin on Sunday and prepared to speak with his Ukrainian opposite number on Monday.

Starmer called on allies to “double down” on support for Kyiv as he arrived at a G20 summit in Rio.

The UK prime minister has faced questions whether Ukraine would receive approval to use the UK-supplied missiles inside Russia’s border, after it emerged on Sunday that Biden had greenlit US long-range missiles for such use.

Healey on Monday told MPs he would “not compromise operational security” by commenting on long-range systems. Their comments indicate the UK would not necessarily confirm publicly any change in permissions surrounding the use of Storm Shadows by Ukraine.

Starmer has been pushing Biden to allow the use of the long-range missiles for several months and argued ahead of the G20 summit that the deployment of North Korean troops had marked an escalation in the conflict.

Biden has authorised Kyiv to launch limited strikes into Russia’s Kursk region using US-made long-range Atacms, in a major policy shift two months before president-elect Donald Trump re-enters the White House.

Storm Shadow missiles, which have a range of about 250km (150 miles), partly rely on US navigational data and other technology, which has meant their use inside Russia has required sign-off from Washington. 

On Monday, UK junior defence minister Maria Eagle was asked whether the country would align with the US in permitting Ukraine to use the missile defence systems that Britain has supplied “as it sees fit in its own defence”. She replied: “Absolutely”.

She added: “We intend to align with our allies in making sure that Ukraine can make use of the capability that has been offered by those who have committed support to that country in its fight.”

Matthew Savill, director of military sciences at the Royal United Services Institute think-tank, said: “It stands to reason that relaxation of the Atacms criteria will similarly lead to some relaxation on both Storm Shadow and [France’s] Scalp.”

He added: “From the Ukrainian perspective it would be preferable for this to take place privately and not be announced until after first use, though the Russians already have some advance warning.”

Savill cautioned that, even if Kyiv does get French and British permissioning, it would take time for Ukraine’s military to put together a cruise missile strike package that could penetrate Russian air defences successfully by using decoys and electronic jamming. As such, “we shouldn’t expect to immediately see a high volume of . . . strikes”, he added.

There are not believed to be large numbers of Storm Shadows left in allied stocks, and western officials have warned that the lengthy discussions between Nato partners about whether to grant Kyiv permission to use these or equivalent US or French weapons inside Russia has allowed Moscow the ability to move key kit and other targets, such as bomber planes, back outside of their range.

The Kremlin on Monday said the US decision to let Ukraine launch limited strikes inside Russia with Atacms marked a “new turn of escalation” in the nearly three-year conflict, and said Moscow would react “appropriately”.

Dmitry Peskov, the Russian president’s spokesperson, said the outgoing Biden’s administration was trying “to keep pouring fuel on the fire and provoke an escalation of tensions”, according to Interfax.