Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choose to move the Pentagon, is scheduled to seem earlier than the Senate Armed Providers Committee on Tuesday to reply questions on a spread of points, together with a sexual assault allegation, his lack of administration expertise and his feedback in opposition to girls serving in fight.
Mr. Hegseth, a former Fox Information host, has a slew of commentary, opinions and allegations to clarify, as Democratic lawmakers get their probability to query him about his {qualifications} to guide the Protection Division, an $849 billion enterprise with almost three million workers.
Eyes can even be on Senator Joni Ernst, Republican of Iowa, who’s an Military Reserve and Nationwide Guard veteran and a sexual assault survivor. Ms. Ernst acquired a barrage of criticism from Trump supporters final month after she stated that Mr. Hegseth wanted to deal with points together with the function of girls within the navy and sexual assault prevention. Her help is considered as crucial to Mr. Hegseth’s affirmation probabilities.
Whether or not Mr. Hegseth has the votes to be confirmed stays an open query. After the committee listening to, the total Senate should vote on the affirmation. If all Democrats oppose him, he can afford to lose the help of simply three Republican senators.
A former Military main who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and a member of the Nationwide Guard till 2021, Mr. Hegseth will presumably want a congressional waiver that’s required for any Pentagon chief who has been retired from active-duty navy service lower than seven years.
The waivers turned large points in the course of the affirmation hearings for the present protection secretary, Lloyd J. Austin III, and for Jim Mattis, who served as protection secretary in the course of the first Trump administration.
However it has not often been talked about forward of Mr. Hegseth’s listening to as a result of there have been so many different points to debate.
The highest members of the Senate Armed Providers Committee have been briefed late Friday on the findings from the F.B.I.’s background test of Mr. Hegseth. Different members of the committee expressed concern that they may not have related info for Mr. Hegseth’s affirmation listening to.
“I must see his F.B.I. background test. We have to see his monetary disclosures,” stated Senator Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois. “And we have to find out about every other potential lawsuits he may be dealing with, every other allegations he may be dealing with.”
Democrats and Mr. Hegseth’s backers have each complained that the opposite aspect has been unresponsive to makes an attempt to rearrange conferences with Mr. Hegseth.
Senator Jack Reed, the rating Democrat on the committee, is the one Democrat who as of final week had met with Mr. Hegseth. Mr. Reed stated in an announcement after the 2 talked on Wednesday that the assembly “raised extra questions than solutions.”
Along with the sexual assault allegation in opposition to Mr. Hegseth, accusations have additionally emerged detailing episodes of public drunkenness, office sexual improprieties and mismanagement of the veterans nonprofits he ran. Mr. Hegseth has stated the sexual assault allegation arose from a consensual encounter. He additionally advised reporters final month that he was “a unique man than I used to be years in the past.”
The allegations in opposition to Mr. Hegseth have did not sway most Republican senators, a lot of whom have argued that senators ought to low cost such claims until the accusers are keen to come back ahead publicly.
Mr. Hegseth, who has been married 3 times, has additionally acknowledged having extramarital affairs. The New York Occasions reported final month that his mom, Penelope Hegseth, wrote him an e-mail in 2018 saying he had routinely mistreated girls for years and displayed a scarcity of character.
Mrs. Hegseth later stated that she had written the e-mail “in anger, with emotion,” at a time when he and his spouse have been going by means of a troublesome divorce, and that she apologized for what she had written.
Extramarital affairs and public intoxication can depart officers and troops within the navy topic to disciplinary motion. Some senior navy leaders have questioned privately whether or not Mr. Hegseth’s affirmation may ship conflicting messages to troops about self-discipline.
Mr. Hegseth’s commentary and writings on numerous points are additionally possible to offer fodder for the listening to. In his guide “The Warfare on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Males Who Hold Us Free,” Mr. Hegseth complained about “woke” generals who he stated had made the navy “effeminate” by pushing variety insurance policies.
He stated that Gen. Charles Q. Brown, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Workers, a place that often works carefully with the protection secretary, must be fired for being too “woke.” Normal Brown is African American.
“America’s white little children are strolling away” from the navy, he wrote, “and who can blame them.”
Earlier than he was nominated by Mr. Trump to be protection secretary, Mr. Hegseth stated that he didn’t imagine that ladies must be in fight. “I’m straight up simply saying we should always not have girls in fight roles,” he stated in a podcast hosted by Shawn Ryan on Nov. 7. Having girls in fight, he stated, “hasn’t made us simpler, hasn’t made us extra deadly, has made combating extra sophisticated.”
A month later, he provided some clarification. Requested in regards to the challenge on the podcast “The Megyn Kelly Present” in early December, Mr. Hegseth stated that “if we’ve got the best commonplace and girls meet that commonplace, roger — let’s go.” However, he added: “If they will’t, and that’s a product of bodily variations as a result of the usual is excessive, then that’s simply the truth.”
