EGN NEWS DESK
Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s decide to move the Pentagon, is scheduled to seem earlier than the Senate Armed Services 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 ladies serving in fight.
Mr. Hegseth, a former Fox News host, has a slew of commentary, opinions and allegations to clarify, as Democratic lawmakers get their likelihood to query him about his {qualifications} to guide the Defense Department, an $849 billion enterprise with practically three million staff.
Eyes may also be on Senator Joni Ernst, Republican of Iowa, who’s an Army Reserve and National Guard veteran and a sexual assault survivor. Ms. Ernst acquired a barrage of criticism from Trump supporters final month after she mentioned that Mr. Hegseth wanted to handle points together with the position of ladies within the navy and sexual assault prevention. Her assist is considered as crucial to Mr. Hegseth’s affirmation probabilities.
Whether 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 assist of simply three Republican senators.
A former Army main who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and a member of the National 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 grew to become large points through the affirmation hearings for the present protection secretary, Lloyd J. Austin III, and for Jim Mattis, who served as protection secretary through the first Trump administration.
But it has hardly ever been talked about forward of Mr. Hegseth’s listening to as a result of there have been so many different points to debate.
The prime members of the Senate Armed Services Committee have been briefed late Friday on the findings from the F.B.I.’s background examine of Mr. Hegseth. Other members of the committee expressed concern that they won’t have related info for Mr. Hegseth’s affirmation listening to.
“I have to see his F.B.I. background examine. We have to see his monetary disclosures,” mentioned Senator Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois. “And we have to find out about every other potential lawsuits he is likely to be going through, every other allegations he is likely to be going through.”
Democrats and Mr. Hegseth’s backers have each complained that the opposite facet 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 mentioned in an announcement after the 2 talked on Wednesday that the assembly “raised extra questions than solutions.”
In addition to 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 mentioned the sexual assault allegation arose from a consensual encounter. He additionally informed reporters final month that he was “a special man than I used to be years in the past.”
The allegations in opposition to Mr. Hegseth have didn’t sway most Republican senators, lots of whom have argued that senators ought to low cost such claims until the accusers are prepared to return ahead publicly.
Mr. Hegseth, who has been married 3 times, has additionally acknowledged having extramarital affairs. The New York Times reported final month that his mom, Penelope Hegseth, wrote him an electronic mail in 2018 saying he had routinely mistreated ladies for years and displayed a scarcity of character.
Mrs. Hegseth later mentioned that she had written the e-mail “in anger, with emotion,” at a time when he and his spouse have been going by a tough divorce, and that she apologized for what she had written.
Extramarital affairs and public intoxication can go away 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 quite a lot of points are additionally doubtless to offer fodder for the listening to. In his e book “The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free,” Mr. Hegseth complained about “woke” generals who he mentioned had made the navy “effeminate” by pushing variety insurance policies.
He mentioned that Gen. Charles Q. Brown, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a place that normally works carefully with the protection secretary, must be fired for being too “woke.” General Brown is African American.
“America’s white little children are strolling away” from the navy, he wrote, “and who can blame them.”
Before he was nominated by Mr. Trump to be protection secretary, Mr. Hegseth mentioned that he didn’t consider that girls must be in fight. “I’m straight up simply saying we should always not have ladies in fight roles,” he mentioned in a podcast hosted by Shawn Ryan on Nov. 7. Having ladies in fight, he mentioned, “hasn’t made us more practical, hasn’t made us extra deadly, has made combating extra sophisticated.”
A month later, he provided some clarification. Asked concerning the difficulty on the podcast “The Megyn Kelly Show” in early December, Mr. Hegseth mentioned that “if we have now the proper customary and ladies meet that customary, roger — let’s go.” But, he added: “If they’ll’t, and that’s a product of bodily variations as a result of the usual is excessive, then that’s simply the truth.”
