President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, was reportedly forced out of two leadership roles at veteran-focused non-profits amid allegations of financial mismanagement, drunkenness and sexist behavior.
A lengthy account in the New Yorker, based on interviews with whistleblowers, described Hegseth’s behavior at two organizations where he held leadership positions: the Koch-backed group Concerned Veterans for America (CVA) and the “AstroTurf” billionaire-backed Vets for Freedom (VFF).
A whistleblower report accused Hegseth, who was CEO, of appearing frequently drunk at CVA social events, fostering a hostile work environment for female staffers and spending non-profit funds on personal expenses.
The news follows allegations of sexual assault in 2017, controversy over Hegseth’s criticism of women serving in combat roles in the military and an email from Hegseth’s mother in which she told him about his mistreatment of women: “get some help and take an honest look at yourself.”
Hegseth’s mother, Penelope, later disavowed the email, said she had written it in anger and called it “disgusting” to publish its contents. Trump’s transition team has said the sexual assault allegations were found to be “false”, a statement contradicted by local police reports.
The Department of Defense is one of the nation’s largest employers, with roughly 3 million military and civilian employees and had a budget of $820bn in 2023.
“I’ve seen him drunk so many times. I’ve seen him dragged away not a few times but multiple times. To have him at the Pentagon would be scary,” a former staffer told the magazine.
In one instance described in the whistleblower report, Hegseth reportedly took CVA staffers to a Louisiana strip club and then got so drunk he attempted to get on stage with the strippers.
The senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut who serves on the Senate armed services committee, told the New Yorker: “Much as we might be sympathetic to people with continuing alcohol problems, they shouldn’t be at the top of our national-security structure.” Hegseth needs Senate confirmation, if he is to take up the cabinet-level position.
At VFF, a former associate told the magazine that Hegseth had effectively run it into the ground, spending in a way that nearly forced the organization into bankruptcy. The findings of a forensic accountant hired by the organization’s donors were described as “appalling”, and one former staffer described parties that, “could politely be called trysts”.
Eventually, VFF merged with another non-profit in a way that removed Hegseth’s leadership power. Hegseth worked at VFF from roughly 2007-2012, and at CVA from 2014-2016.
The allegations come after Trump has stood by Hegseth following an investigation into sexual assault allegations by Monterey, California, police in 2017. In that incident, Hegseth was accused of assaulting a woman after a Republican women’s event.
Investigators recommended the complaint be forwarded to prosecutors for review. Hegseth paid a confidential settlement to the woman involved in the alleged incident in 2023 to head off the threat of a lawsuit.
At the time, a spokesperson for Trump’s transition team said: the “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”.
