WASHINGTON: The mother of Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, wrote him an email in 2018 saying he had routinely mistreated women for years and displayed a lack of character. “On behalf of all the women (and I know it’s many) you have abused in some way, I say … get some help and take an honest look at yourself,” Penelope Hegseth wrote, stating that she still loved him.
“I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego. You are that man (and have been for years) and as your mother, it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth.”
Penelope Hegseth, in a phone interview with The New York Times on Friday, said that she had sent her son an immediate follow-up email at the time apologising for what she had written. She said she had fired off the original email “in anger, with emotion” at a time when he and his wife were going through a very difficult divorce.
In the interview, she defended her son and disavowed the sentiments she had expressed in the initial email about his character and treatment of women. “It is not true. It has never been true,” she said. She added: “I know my son. He is a good father, husband.” She said that publishing the contents of the first email was “disgusting.”
Questions about Pete Hegseth’s treatment of women have emerged in the weeks since Trump chose him, a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, to lead the Pentagon. The issue could be a subject of scrutiny during Senate confirmation hearings.
Reports of his infidelity have focused attention on his character and leadership, particularly for a civilian overseeing the military, where active-duty service members can be subject to prosecution for adultery under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Another issue is how the senators will view a rape complaint against Hegseth filed to police in Oct 2017 after an incident at a political conference in Monterey, California. No charges were ever brought and the complainant has not come forward publicly. Hegseth has said he was falsely accused by a woman with whom he had a consensual sexual encounter. He secretly paid her a settlement a few years later – only because, according to his lawyer, he wanted to protect his job as weekend anchor at Fox & Friends.
Penelope Hegseth emailed her son on April 30, 2018, during a turbulent period in his life. He was in the middle of a contentious divorce from his second wife, Samantha, the mother of three of his children. Samantha Hegseth filed for divorce after her husband impregnated a co-worker, part of a pattern of adultery that dated back to his first marriage.
Pete Hegseth’s mother wrote in the email that she was upset about his treatment of Samantha, writing: “For you to try to label her as ‘unstable’ for your own advantage is despicable and abusive. Is there any sense of decency left in you?”
“She did not ask for or deserve any of what has come to her by your hand,” she said.
“Neither did Meredith,” Penelope Hegseth added, referring to his first wife.
Hegseth forwarded a copy of her email to Samantha the same night she sent it to her son. The NYT obtained a copy of the email from another person with ties to the Hegseth family. Hegseth told the daily on Friday she would consider providing with her apologetic follow-up email to her son but did not immediately do so.