Megyn Kelly has issued a withering assessment of Pete Hegseth amid reports he allegedly sexually assaulted a woman in 2017.
Kelly, 54, who worked with Hegseth, now 44, at Fox News, joined the Charlie Kirk Show and gave her opinion on the allegations swirling around Donald Trump’s pick for Defense Secretary.
When asked by Kirk about the ‘smear campaign’ against Hegseth, Kelly, who said she’s ‘the reason’ he became a Fox News contributor, admitted that she doesn’t ‘recommend marrying’ him.
‘I’m gonna be honest, like looking at his marital history, it’s not an example of fidelity. Ok, so I’m just gonna be honest and admit that upfront.
Despite that, the former NBC News anchor defended Hegseth – a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan with a handful of military medals, including two Bronze Stars.
‘However, having difficulty in one’s personal relationship, especially after having served two tours – which it’s not uncommon for these combat vets to come back and not be able to navigate their love lives all that well – is much different than being a rapist,’ she added.
Kelly then said that the woman’s accusations against Hegseth allegedly assaulting her on October 8 of that year seem suspicious to her.
‘And this woman’s story smells terribly,’ Kelly said as she raised up a copy of the police report – covered in post-it notes and highlighter markings – that she went over ‘line by line.’
Megyn Kelly issued her own assessment of the alleged sexual assault involving her former Fox News co-worker Pete Hegseth
The alleged October 2017 assault never resulted in charges as Hegseth has admitted to paying the 30-year-old woman off in order to protect his job. (pictured: Hegseth after a meeting on Capitol Hill on Thursday)
It is that alleged assault – which never resulted in charges – that threatens Hegseth’s nomination for a seat in Trump’s cabinet.
A police report released this week by the City of Monterey, California, shows that a then-30-year-old woman was having champagne with co-workers while on a business trip when things got ‘fuzzy’ and she suddenly ended up in a room with Hegseth.
Timothy Parlatore, a lawyer representing Hegseth, has admitted his client paid the woman for her silence because he did not want to lose his job, while at the same time dismissing the allegations as ‘baseless’ and tantamount to a ‘successful extortion.’
Along with Parlator, Kelly also does not believe that the alleged assault took place, as she warned that media coverage on these allegations will not give people the ‘facts.’
‘You will learn that they were together at some conference in Monterey, back in 2017, October, and that she’s alleging that he [Hegseth] may have given her a date rape drug and raped her, and that he’s alleging it was consensual affair,’ Kelly said.
She added that a few years later, Hegseth paid her to stay silent after she ‘began to rattle his cage about a possible lawsuit against him.’
Hegseth is a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan with a handful of military medals, including two Bronze Stars. (pictured: Hegseth with his second wife Samantha)
Kelly then dove into the police report, which she said placed the woman at a bar with Hegseth, while her husband and children ‘were down the hotel room hall.’
Following the Republican women’s conference that night, ‘others said she was flirting with him,’ Kelly said.
‘She was touching his leg, etc. Flirting with him. That he seemed to be more focused on a different woman, not this one. That Pete would later tell the police that he never had it as a thought in his mind that he would hook up with this woman, who, apparently he didn’t have any interest in,’ Kelly said, referring to the report.
The podcaster said that, according to the report, the woman then ‘escorted’ Hegseth out of the bar to go back to his hotel room with him.
‘And at 1:30 in the morning, she was seen on videotape, which the police reviewed and reported the following facts about: She was fine, she wasn’t stumbling,’ Kelly said, adding that it was Hegseth who ‘looked drunk.’
She then detailed an incident where hotel security had to step in after two guests allegedly reported a ‘fight out by the pool,’ as they made a noise complaint.
Kelly continued: ‘Now, first of all, that’s totally inappropriate. She told cops they were arguing over his treatment of women? What? You’re supposed to be his handler for the conference and you’re getting into a personal argument with him over his treatment of women?
President-elect Donald Trump announced Hegseth, 44, as his nominee for Defense Secretary on November 14. (pictured: Hegseth and his third wife Jennifer Rauchet with Trump)
Part of her job for the conference was to make sure Hegseth got out of bed the next morning in time to catch his flight home.
‘So loud and belligerent that hotel guests are calling security? You crossed your line. You’re behaving inappropriately madam.’
Kelly then noted that the woman and others at the bar that night said she had just one glass of champagne, and that she ‘was fine, she wasn’t stumbling, she wasn’t slurring.’
‘Pete was drunk. She was fine,’ she added.
Following the alleged incident, Hegseth and his accuser were then seen on camera footage leaving the pool, back to the hotel, Kelly said, according to the police report.
‘Their arms are locked like a boyfriend and girlfriend might be. She’s smiling, she does not appear drunk,’ Kelley said, adding that four witnesses ‘laid eyes on her’ either in person or on video.
‘She goes back to her hotel room, sometime between 1:30 and 2:00am. She is texting her husband during this time. She sounds totally fine in these texts, she does not sound like she is intoxicated or out of her mind at all,’ Kelley detailed.
Hegseth, who was divorced from his second wife at the time of the alleged rape, has not been charged in any criminal case or named as a defendant in any civil lawsuit
Kelly said, according to the report, that the texts between the woman and her husband then ‘shut down’ before the woman had an ‘unaccounted period from 2am to 4am.’
‘The husband calls her twice during that time period. The husband gets out of bed to go check the hotel bar, looking for his wife, wondering where the hell she is. There’s no-one in the bar called “knuckles” in the Hyatt Regency,’ Kelly explained.
The commentator said, according to the report, that the husband then went back into his hotel room where he tried to get in contact with her again before she finally arrived by 4am.
‘She’s fine. She’s not stumbling, she’s not slurring,’ Kelley said.
‘When was she drugged? When was she drugged? Did Pete get her back to the hotel room? Slip her a mickey at 2am, take advantage of her, and then at 4am got her back to her hotel room, totally fine?’
A complaint from an unnamed woman with extensive knowledge of the alleged rape sent to Trump’s staff explained the story police were told at the time.
The memo sent by the other woman claimed she ‘didn’t remember anything until she was in Hegseth’s hotel room and then stumbling to find her hotel room’.
The six to nine hours after intervening in Hegseth flirting with the other women were ‘very hazy’, the memo claimed.
When she returned home, she ‘had a moment of hazy memory of being raped the night before, and had a panic attack’, the memo alleged.
That was when she went to the ER and had a rape kit taken that was positive for semen.
Local police investigated the alleged sexual assault involving Hegseth, that was reported four days later, the city said.
No weapons were involved, according to the statement, but there were injuries – ‘contusions to the right thigh.’
Hegseth, who was divorced from his second wife at the time of the alleged rape, has not been charged in any criminal case or named as a defendant in any civil lawsuit.
