President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Defense, Fox News personality Pete Hegseth, was investigated for an alleged sexual assault in the city of Monterey in 2017, according to a statement the city released Thursday in response to media inquiries.

The city’s statement discloses that it had one police report connected to an investigation from October of that year regarding an alleged sexual assault at an address on Old Golf Course Road.

According to the statement, the alleged incident occurred between midnight and 7 a.m. on Oct. 8 and was reported four days later, on the afternoon of Oct. 12.

The report did not include the name of Hegseth’s accuser, and the statement did not disclose the results of the police investigation, which Monterey said was exempt from California’s public records laws.

The statement went on to say that no weapons were alleged to be involved, but the victim reported a contusion to their right thigh.

The city provided no other information about the investigation.

Vanity Fair was the first to report the allegation.

Trump’s communications officer, Steven Cheung, told the magazine: “Mr. Hegseth has vigorously denied any and all accusations, and no charges were filed.”

Timothy Parlatore, Hegseth’s lawyer, told Vanity Fair: “This allegation was already investigated by the Monterey police department and they found no evidence for it.”

Hegseth, 44, was a co-host of the channel’s morning program “Fox & Friends” weekend edition since 2017. An Army National Guard officer, he joined the network as a contributor in 2014.

Hegseth is a graduate of Princeton University, and has a graduate degree from Harvard University. For his military service, he was decorated with two Bronze Stars, as well as a Combat Infantryman Badge.

Hegseth is a bestselling author for Fox News Books, the network’s publishing imprint.

“His insights and analysis especially about the military resonated deeply with our viewers and made the program the major success that it is today,” Fox News said in a statement. “We are extremely proud of his work at Fox News and wish him the best of luck in Washington.”

The nomination of a TV host with no senior military or government experience overseeing the nation’s defense has provoked incredulity among some veterans and defense experts.

Hegseth has called for purging the military of top officials or anyone who has advocated for diversity and inclusion programs, and he has questioned whether women should be allowed to serve in combat.

Staff writers Stephen Battaglio and Jenny Jarvie contributed to this report.

President-elect Trump announced that William Owen Scharf, one of his lawyers, will serve as assistant to the president and staff secretary in the upcoming administration.

“I am pleased to announce that William Owen Scharf will serve as Assistant to the President and White House Staff Secretary,” Trump’s statement read. “Will is a highly skilled attorney who will be a crucial part of my White House team.”

The Republican leader added that Scharf, a former federal prosecutor, “has played a key role in defeating the Election Interference and Lawfare waged against me, including by winning the Historic Immunity Decision in the Supreme Court.”

“Will is going to make us proud as we Make America Great Again,” Trump added.

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Scharf, who received an undergraduate degree from Princeton University and a law degree from Harvard University, has clerked for two federal appeals court judges. 

The former prosecutor was also employed by CRC Advisors, a conservative public relations firm, and has also worked for Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens. Scharf also worked as an assistant U.S. Attorney in St. Louis. 

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William Owen Scharf will serve as assistant to the president and staff secretary in the upcoming Trump administration. (Tammy Ljungblad/Kansas City Star/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

The lawyer recently ran for Missouri attorney general, but lost in the Republican primary to incumbent Andrew Bailey. Bailey won against Democrat Elad Gross earlier in November. 

Trump posted about Scharf’s appointment shortly before he announced his pick for secretary of energy, Chris Wright, on Saturday night.

President-elect Donald Trump listens during a gala at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Thursday, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Wright, the CEO of Liberty Energy, “was one of the pioneers who helped launch the American Shale Revolution that fueled American Energy Independence, and transformed the Global Energy Markets and Geopolitics,” Trump wrote.

Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

Here’s a quiz. Read the following sentences and decide if they’re a headline from satirical news site the Onion or my summaries of comments from the unironic mind of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his disinformation network, Infowars.

Cloaked Hillary Clinton beckons Harris to follow her into woods.

Majority of frogs in the United States are now gay.

Dolphin spends amazing vacation swimming with stockbroker.

Deadly floods in Texas generated by Air Force’s weather machine.

Hard to tell, but from here on out, you may not need to because the two entities are poised to live under the same umbrella.

The Onion bought Infowars. And no, this is not a jokey Onion headline. (Quiz answers appear below.)

Thursday it was revealed that the Onion won an auction to acquire Infowars, Alex Jones’ vile repository of harmful lies that was sold as part of a defamation settlement after he falsely claimed that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut was a hoax. Jones was found guilty of defamation in 2022 by juries in Texas and Connecticut.

“Our goal in a couple of years is for people to think of Infowars as the funniest and dumbest website that exists,” said Ben Collins, the Onion’s CEO. “It was previously the dumbest website that exists.”

The Onion’s bid was backed by the families of eight victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre and a first responder. A federal judge in Texas ordered a hearing into how the Onion won the bidding after Jones and his lawyers raised questions about how the auction was conducted, but not before the Onion shut down Infowars in preparation for its grand transformation from a hateful fake news empire to a parody of a hateful fake news empire.

Should the deal go through, the Onion will have an exclusive advertising agreement with the gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety.

“We thought it would be a very funny joke if we bought this thing, probably one of the better jokes we’ve ever told,” Collins told the Associated Press. “The [Sandy Hook] families decided they would effectively join our bid, back our bid, to try to get us over the finish line. Because by the end of the day, it was us or Alex Jones, who could either continue this website unabated, basically unpunished, for what he’s done to these families over the years, or we could make a dumb, stupid website, and we decided to do the second thing.”

Jones is renowned for “reexamining” American tragedies and decrying them as a hoax. According to him, 9/11 was an inside job, the Boston Marathon bombing was staged by the FBI and the shooting of former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was part of a clandestine mind-control operation.

Alongside the lies and conspiracy theories, Jones used Infowars to sell millions of dollars’ worth of merchandise such as DVDs and T-shirts, building a media empire that spanned the web, radio and subscription video. But his major source of revenue was a collection of dietary supplements catering to the specific needs and paranoias of his fan base: Infowars Life Silver Bullet Colloidal Silver. Infowars Life Super Male Vitality. Infowars Life Liver Shield.

Now add humor to the mix, and drop the rest of that other stuff.

One need to look no further than the Onion’s leading editorial Friday to see why Infowars has a bright future in the comedic fictional news zone. The Onion’s make-believe owner, Bryce P. Tetraeder, Global Tetrahedron CEO, penned the explainer about why he chose to buy Jones’ reprehensible site.

“Founded in 1999 on the heels of the Satanic ‘panic’ and growing steadily ever since, Infowars has distinguished itself as an invaluable tool for brainwashing and controlling the masses,” he wrote. “With a shrewd mix of delusional paranoia and dubious anti-aging nutrition hacks, they strive to make life both scarier and longer for everyone, a commendable goal. They are a true unicorn, capable of simultaneously inspiring public support for billionaires and stoking outrage at an inept federal state that can assassinate JFK but can’t even put a man on the moon.”

Tetraeder’s X account describes him as “Global Tetrahedron CEO, chairman, media proprietor, entrepreneur, human trafficker, thought leader, and venture capitalist.”

But what is he really? Let’s ask Jones. He’s a corporate tendrils, deep-state expert. Or was.

In a video posted on Thursday, Jones railed about the sale, calling it unconstitutional. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’m going to be here until they come in there and turn the lights off,” he said.

Write your own “Disgraced CEO found in dark closet of old office” headline here.

As for the quiz,”Cloaked Hillary” and the vacationing dolphin were from the Onion.

The gay frogs and Air Force weather machine were from Jones.

But they’re no more outlandish than recent headlines about a Fox News co-host and combat veteran running the Department of Defense, or an anti-vaxxer picked to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. If only those were fake.