FBI did not interview Hegseth sex assault accuser ahead of Senate hearing, sources say

The FBI did not interview a woman who accused Pete Hegseth of sexual assault in 2017 as part of the agency’s background investigation into him, according to two people with knowledge of the FBI report’s contents who spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose private discussions. Democratic senators on the Senate Armed Services Committee are now slamming the report as inadequate as they prepare to question the candidate picked to lead the Defense Department at Tuesday’s public confirmation hearing.

“Several of the witnesses were not interviewed by the FBI, even though they wanted to be,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Illinois) said as she left a meeting of committee Democrats on Monday, declining to say which witnesses she was referring to.

Another committee Democrat, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (Connecticut), said he has not seen the report but has been told “there are significant gaps and inadequacies including the apparent failure to interview some of the potential witnesses or sources of information that are highly relevant.”

The lack of an interview with the accuser in the background check was first reported by NBC News.

Trump tapped Hegseth, a former Fox News host, to lead the Defense Department in November. Democrats, who have called for a thorough vetting of the sexual assault allegation Hegseth faces, have begun to raise alarms that they believe the FBI vetting process was not thorough enough.

All nominees are typically subjected to a standard background check by the FBI after they are tapped for roles, and the results are shared with the committees tasked with processing them. The FBI is under no obligation to interview accusers, whistleblowers or naysayers in the course of a background check, unless they are directed to by the transition team that requested it, according to Senate aides with knowledge of the process who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.

The 44-year-old National Guard veteran who served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan has acknowledged paying an undisclosed sum to a woman who had accused him of sexual assault at a Republican conference in 2017. He said the encounter was consensual, and charges were never brought. Former employees who worked with Hegseth at two veterans’ groups and at Fox News have accused him of financial mismanagement and engaging in excessive drinking and sexism on the job. Hegseth has denied all of it and pointed out that the allegations have been made anonymously and should thus carry less weight.

“It’s not surprising that the FBI declined to interview the [accuser] because she had been interviewed multiple times by other law enforcement officers, which was all memorialized in the police report,” Hegseth’s attorney, Tim Parlatore, said in a statement.

Parlatore noted that parts of the accuser’s story had been “contradicted” by other evidence in the report.

“Given that, there’s no need for the FBI to retread what another law enforcement agency had professionally and completely investigated,” he added.

Democrats have said they plan to ask Hegseth blistering questions about his record at Tuesday’s hearing.

Hegseth’s accuser, whose identity has not been made public, filed a complaint with the police alleging she was sexually assaulted days after the Oct. 7, 2017, encounter at a Republican women’s conference in Monterey, California, but the local district attorney did not bring charges. Police confirmed that they investigated the incident. After she threatened litigation in 2020, Hegseth made the payment, and she signed the nondisclosure agreement, his attorney said in November.

Typically, the background investigation is made available only to the committee’s top Democrat and Republican. On some other committees, including Judiciary, all senators have generally been allowed to access the report’s contents.

A key Republican moderate, Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), said she believes the committee should make an exception to that rule and allow all members to review the background check.

“In this case, given the many questions that have been raised, I would think it would be helpful for the entire committee to be able to read it,” Collins said.

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Jacqueline Alemany and Mariana Alfaro contributed to this report.