Pete Hegseth admitted to having had five affairs during his first marriage, according to a new report.
President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Defense secretary married Meredith Schwarz in 2004, according to Vanity Fair. That was after they were voted “most likely to marry” in 1999 at Forst Lake Area High School in the Minneapolis suburbs.
Hegseth moved on to Princeton, where he wrote a column for the conservative Princeton Tory, sharing his views disdainful of feminism and LGBT+ rights.
“By advocating government support of the traditional family unit, a return of the acceptability of the ‘homemaker’ vocation, freedom from oppressive government oversight, moral responsibility, and the revival of religious faith, conservatives provide a working blueprint for a free and prosperous future,” he wrote in 2002.
Schwarz filed for divorce in 2008 after Hegseth admitted infidelity, according to Vanity Fair, citing four sources close to Schwarz and Hegseth.
APM Reports previously reported that the cheating was listed as grounds for the split during divorce proceedings.
“She was gaslighted by him heavily throughout their relationship,” one source told Vanity Fair. “As far as everyone else was concerned, they were viewed by many as this all-American power couple that were making big things for themselves.”
The magazine noted that Schwarz chose not to comment on the story and that Hegseth’s lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, didn’t respond to questions but instead shared a statement that attacked the reporter’s record.
Hegseth was dating Samantha Deering, whom he met as he worked at Vets for Freedom, at the time of his first divorce. They married in 2010 and have three children. Deering filed for divorce in 2017 after Hegseth had a child with Fox News producer Jennifer Rauchet. Hegseth and Rauchet were married in 2019 at a Trump golf course in New Jersey.
If confirmed as secreatry of Defense, Hegseth would oversee about 1.3 million active duty personnel and a budget of almost $900 billion.
In 2020, he released the book American Crusade in which he suggested that the military take on a Christian mission.
“Our present moment is much like the eleventh century,” he wrote. “We don’t want to fight, but, like our fellow Christians a thousand years ago, we must. We need an American Crusade.”
Vanity Fair reported last month that the Trump transition team was caught off guard by a sexual assault allegation against Hegseth stemming from an October 2017 incident at a Republican women’s conference in California.
“The matter was fully investigated, and I was completely cleared. And that’s where I’m going to leave it,” he told reporters while on Capitol Hill in November.
Hegseth changed during his relationship with Schwarz, which lasted 12 years, Vanity Fair noted.
“He has a heart of gold and is the sweetest guy I know,” she wrote in the yearbook.
“Meredith is as beautiful, caring, intelligent, and loving inside as she is outside,” Hegseth wrote.
But in November of 2008, Hegseth told Schwarz that he had been having affairs, later admitting to five of them. The next day, Schwarz’s younger brother called Hegseth, with the call lasting four hours.
“Pete said he no longer believed in God and family values,” a source with knowledge of the call told Vanity Fair. “He claimed he no longer wanted to seek the limelight. He said, and this quote is as clear as day, ‘I’m a f***** up individual.’”
