Senate Republicans fear that the confirmation hearings for secretary of defense nominee Pete Hegseth will be a repeat of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s heated 2018 hearings.
Both Kavanaugh and Hegseth have been accused of sexual misconduct and have rejected the allegations. Hegseth’s plan to release his accuser from a nondisclosure agreement is setting up the hearing to be filled with tension and fervor from both Democrats and Republicans.
Hegseth is set to push ahead with his nomination despite warnings from Senate Republicans that he’s likely to face a frenzy of uncomfortable questions about the sexual misconduct allegations and the claims against him of excessive drinking and financial mismanagement.
“I told him it’s going to be a miserable experience, sort of like Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing,” said Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn, according to The Hill.
In 2018, dozens of protesters were detained by Capitol Police in the Senate office buildings, leading to senators being escorted by police as they went around the Capitol complex. Kavanaugh also became famously animated as he discussed the allegations of sexual assault and was questioned before he was eventually appointed to the Supreme Court.
While Cornyn said senators remain “open” to confirming Hegseth, he added that “They want the process to continue and we’ll respond to any new information that they get.”
“Everything is going to be elevated. I think it’s going to be Kavanaugh on steroids,” said North Carolina Republican Senator Thom Tillis.
Senators noted that the atmosphere depends on whether Hegseth’s accuser would be willing to appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee. In 2018, Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey-Ford appeared before Congress to detail sexual misconduct allegations against Kavanaugh when they were teens.
Senators Joni Ernst of Iowa and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina have both said that they would be unwilling to vote against Hegseth based on anonymous allegations.
An advisor to Hegseth said the 44-year-old is willing to discuss any and all allegations against him in meetings with senators, according to The Hill.
“Mr. Hegseth has assured the Senators with whom he is meeting that they will be able to fulfill their advise and consent duties when it comes to this and all topics,” said the advisor.
The next Senate Republican leader, John Thune of South Dakota, said it will be the Armed Services Committee’s decision if they want to call on the accuser to testify.
“That’s obviously a decision the committee, he, and — they’re all going to have to make that,” he said of the panel and Hegseth.
“As a general rule, I think it’s important that hearings be conducted in the light of day with full transparency,” he added.
Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the next chair of the Armed Services Committee, said he doesn’t know if the accuser will testify.
“I guess it depends on what she has to say,” he said.
Rutgers University political science professor Ross Baker said the Democrats are likely to read out the most controversial parts of the 2017 police report of the sexual misconduct allegation against Hegseth.
“We must assume that it will contain some pretty graphic information, and presumably it would be presented by the Democrats at the hearing in the Armed Services Committee,” he said, according to The Hill.
The accuser has claimed that Hegseth took her phone and stopped her from leaving his hotel room during a conference in Monterey, California. Hegseth has said that the encounter was consensual and that he ensured that she was “comfortable with what was going on.”
