Drunk or ‘buzzed’? Conflicting claims in Pete Hegseth sex assault probe

The disputed 2017 sexual encounter that could sink President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Defense Department involved alcohol, personal dislike − and a shifting narrative that sexual assault experts say could weaken former Fox News anchor Pete Hegseth’s credibility.
Hegseth told investigators in a recently released 2017 police report that he had only consumed beer and was “‘buzzed’ but not intoxicated” at the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa in northern California before the incident, which led to a sexual assault investigation and a confidential monetary settlement.
Hegseth’s statement to police directly conflicts with a 2017 witness account − and with recent statements by Hegseth’s attorney, who said he was visibly intoxicated on the night in question and that his alleged victim was “the aggressor in the encounter.”
No charges were filed and Hegseth has insisted the encounter was consensual.
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The release of the graphic police report came the same day that former Rep. Matt Gaetz’s withdrew from consideration as Trump’s next attorney general over allegations of sexual misconduct involving a minor.
In addition to Gaetz, Trump has nominated other three men accused of sexual misconduct to important positions in his next administration: Hegseth, Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
While Gaetz had faced an uphill confirmation battle, Hegseth is “going to be in pretty good shape,” Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the likely next chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters Thursday after meeting with the nominee.
The 2017 allegation centers on a California Federation of Republican Women convention where Hegseth, a telegenic Republican culture warrior, was the keynote speaker on Saturday, October 7, and his alleged victim was a staffer for the organization.
On several occasions that night, the alleged victim expressed dislike for Hegseth.
In texts to her husband, who was staying at the hotel with, according to reports, their two small children, she wrote that Hegseth was giving off “creeper” vibes, ridiculing him as he spoke from the podium.
“I’m going to be here all night,” she wrote. “It’s awful.” She also texted her husband that she had been drinking “much more than normal.”
More:Trump defense pick Pete Hegseth paid settlement to woman who accused him of sexual assault, denies allegation
Later that night, after conference attendees moved from an after-party to a sports bar in the hotel, the alleged victim intervened when Hegseth became pushy in asking another woman back to his room, touching the woman’s knee as he made his play, according to the police report.
The woman “gained the attention of JANE DOE,” as the alleged victim is called in the police report, “and had JANE DOE become a ‘crotch blocker,'” an investigator wrote. The alleged victim didn’t appear intoxicated, this witness told police.
Video surveillance footage showed Hegseth and the alleged victim leaving the hotel bar, arm in arm, around 1:15 a.m. on Oct. 8.
By 1:30 a.m., noise complaints sent a hotel employee to a pool area where they found the alleged victim and Hegseth. They were arguing, she told police, about what she characterized as Hegseth’s disrespectful treatment of the woman at the bar. The employee told police Hegseth appeared “very intoxicated” and that he cursed when asked to keep the noise down and said he had “freedom of speech.”
The alleged victim apologized to the employee and guided Hegseth away from the pool area, toward his room.
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Sometime after, she received a text message from her husband that said, “Holy smokes lady…I don’t remember the last time you were socializing at nearly 2:00 am”
Her last message of the night was cut off: “Hahaha I know. I gotta make sure that fo…”
Her spouse responded, “Doing OK? My love? Worried about you.”
Around 4 a.m. Sunday, the alleged victim returned to her hotel room and attended activities for the Republican women’s group that morning. On Monday she began to recall pieces of the incident with Hegseth, she told police.
Four days after the incident, the alleged victim sought a sexual assault exam and a nurse informed police. The victim told investigators she didn’t know how she wound up in Hegseth’s room, but said she remembered Hegseth blocking the door as she tried to leave. She told police he took her phone away at one point.
Hegseth told police he was “buzzed,” but not drunk, during the evening, and that he didn’t recall being chastised over noise at the pool or being belligerent to anyone. He recalled “not even a thought” of having sex with the alleged victim prior to their encounter, he told investigators, and was surprised when she joined him in his room.
The police report says Hegseth “stated there was ‘always’ conversation and ‘always’ consensual contact between the two of them.” He told police the alleged victim “showed early signs of regret” afterwards, the report says.
Seven years later, with a Cabinet appointment on the line, Hegseth’s attorney, Timothy Parlatore, told media outlets Hegseth was “visibly intoxicated” and the woman was “the aggressor in the encounter.”
Any time claims shift during a criminal investigation it raises questions, said Laurie Levenson, a criminal law expert at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.
“Does it work better to say he wasn’t intoxicated and bolster his position that he was a responsible person evaluating this woman’s intoxication?” Levenson said of Hegseth’s reversal. “Or is it better to say, ‘Gee, I don’t recall the details because I was so intoxicated?'”
Levenson said issues around intoxication and consent arise frequently in sexual assault allegations. She noted the district attorney’s decision not to press charges isn’t the same as clearing Hegseth of wrongdoing.
Hegseth addressed the allegation Thursday in a scrum of reporters on Capitol Hill who asked, “Did you sexually assault a woman in Monterey, California?”
More:California police release details of Pete Hegseth sexual assault report
“It’s very simple,” Hegseth replied. “The matter was fully investigated and I was completely cleared. And that’s where I’m gonna leave it.”
Hegseth later paid the alleged victim an undisclosed sum to settle a potential civil claim Parlatore told media outlets. The settlement included a confidentiality clause barring her from discussing the incident. When CNN contacted her last week, she “became visibly distraught at the mention of Hegseth’s name but declined to be interviewed,” the outlet reported.
Former Utah sex crimes investigator Justin Boardman, now a consultant, said he was struck by the disparity between Hegseth’s statement’s to police in 2017 about whether we was intoxicated and his attorney’s words this week.
“He described himself as sober, carefully talking through a consensual encounter every step of the way,” Boardman said. “He was saying everything to make himself look in the best possible light to police.” Parlatore didn’t reply to a query about Hegseth’s changed story.
Alcohol and drug use is often a hinge point in sexual assault investigations. National standards warn nurse examiners that voluntary alcohol or drug use is often used to undermine a victim’s credibility in court, but that in some instances it might be helpful in prosecuting a case by documenting their vulnerability.
The standards also set a toxicology collection window of roughly 96 hours after an alleged assault. The woman in 2017 reported the incident after four days, or roughly right on the edge of that window.
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The police report does not indicate if a toxicology screening, which can indicate the presence of alcohol and drugs, was completed.
In California, as elsewhere, people are unable to provide consent if they are too intoxicated, but a prosecutor must prove the condition “was known, or reasonably should have been known by the accused.”
Boardman, the former sex assault investigator, said alcohol and drug-facilitated cases are particularly difficult to investigate and prove to a jury. They face hurdles with measuring alcohol consumption and the biases baked into juries about rape.
Hegseth’s actions with the other woman at the bar could also be considered, Boardman said.
“He had the the chops to go after somebody else, casting at the bar,” Boardman said. “He was touching other women inappropriately.”
On Thursday, Trump’s transition spokesperson Karoline Leavitt defended Hegseth after the police report’s release.
“This report corroborates what Mr. Hegseth’s attorneys have said all along: the incident was fully investigated, and no charges were filed because police found the allegations to be false,” Leavitt said.
In a statement to KSBW News, the Monterey County District Attorney’s office said that “no charges were supported by proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Nick Penzenstadler is a reporter on the USA TODAY investigations team. Contact him at [email protected] or @npenzenstadler, or on Signal at (720) 507-5273.