Monterey, Calif. – Pete Hegseth, the Army veteran turned Fox News host selected by President-elect Donald Trump to be defense secretary during his second term was investigated for an alleged sexual assault in 2017, Monterey, Calif. officials confirmed. 

In response to multiple public record requests to the city, including one from CBS News, officials released a public statement late Thursday evening about a 2017 police investigation into Hegseth. The statement form the City Manager’s Office and Monterey Police Department contained few details about the case and said they would not make any other public statements related to the investigation. 

The incident allegedly occurred somewhere between a minute before midnight on Oct. 7, 2017 and 7 a.m. on Oct. 8, 2017 at 1 Old Golf Course Road, the location of the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel. A police report was filed with Monterey Police Department three days later, on Oct. 12, 2024.

Police did not disclose the name or age of the alleged victim but did describe the injuries as “Contusions” “right thigh.”

The statement said no weapons were involved. 

News of the sexual misconduct allegation was revealed on Thursday by Vanity Fair when the magazine reported that Trump’s incoming chief of staff, Susie Wiles, was briefed about the alleged sexual misconduct by Hegseth involving a woman, citing unnamed sources — one of whom reportedly said the incident took place in Monterey. 

The allegation prompted a discussion among Wiles, Trump’s legal team and Hegseth, who described the allegation as a consensual encounter and a classic case of he-said, she-said, the magazine reported. 

Timothy Parlatore, a former Trump lawyer who frequently represents current and former members of the U.S. military, told Vanity Fair: “This allegation was already investigated by the Monterey police department and they found no evidence for it.” 

Hegseth is a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan with a handful of military medals, including two Bronze Stars, and has undergraduate and graduate degrees from Princeton and Harvard.

Since 2019, Hegseth has been married to his third wife, Fox News producer Jennifer Rauchet. The two were married at Trump’s National Gold Club in Colts Neck, New Jersey. 

Hegseth and his first wife, Meredith Schwarz, divorced in 2009. He and his second wife, Samantha Deering, divorced in 2017, the year he was investigated for the alleged sexual assault.

Disagreement over Hegseth’s qualifications

Following Trump’s Tuesday night announcement that he would nominate Hegseth to be his defense secretary, many have questioned whether the 44-year-old co-host of “Fox & Friends Weekends” can handle managing the Defense Department, which has a budget of $842 billion, almost three million employees and 750 military installations around the world.

“The Pentagon is in need of real reform, and they’re getting a leader who has grit to make it happen,” said Trump’s pick for national security adviser, Republican Rep. Mike Waltz of Florida, in a post on the social media platform X. Waltz is a former Army Green Beret colonel. 

Democratic Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado, who served in the Army’s elite 75th Ranger Regiment in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Hegseth was not “remotely qualified” to be defense secretary. 

“The SecDef [secretary of defense] makes life-and-death decisions daily that impact over 2 million troops around the globe. This is not an entry-level job for a TV commentator,” Crow said on X. “The Senate should do its job and deny this nomination.”

Hegseth’s controversial views

Hegseth is a longtime conservative and staunch Trump ally who has talked about changes Trump should make at the Pentagon.

He said the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Charles Q. Brown should be fired for “pursuing the radical positions of left-wing politicians.”

And he believes women should not be in combat for the U.S. military, a point he reiterated last week in an interview with “The Shawn Ryan Show” podcast. 

Ahead of then President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration in January 2021, The Associated Press reported that 12 U.S. National Guard members were removed from helping to secure the event after vetting by the U.S. military and FBI. The members made extremist statements in posts or text messages or had ties with right-wing militia groups. 

Hegseth revealed during his interview Shawn Ryan, a former Navy SEAL, that he was one of the National Guard members removed from securing the inauguration.

Monterey, Calif. – Pete Hegseth, the Army veteran turned Fox News host selected by President-elect Donald Trump to be defense secretary during his second term was investigated for an alleged sexual assault in 2017, Monterey, Calif. officials confirmed. 

In response to multiple public record requests to the city, including one from CBS News, officials released a public statement late Thursday evening about a 2017 police investigation into Hegseth. The statement form the City Manager’s Office and Monterey Police Department contained few details about the case and said they would not make any other public statements related to the investigation. 

The incident allegedly occurred somewhere between a minute before midnight on Oct. 7, 2017 and 7 a.m. on Oct. 8, 2017 at 1 Old Golf Course Road, the location of the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel. A police report was filed with Monterey Police Department three days later, on Oct. 12, 2024.

Police did not disclose the name or age of the alleged victim but did describe the injuries as “Contusions” “right thigh.”

The statement said no weapons were involved. 

News of the sexual misconduct allegation was revealed on Thursday by Vanity Fair when the magazine reported that Trump’s incoming chief of staff, Susie Wiles, was briefed about the alleged sexual misconduct by Hegseth involving a woman, citing unnamed sources — one of whom reportedly said the incident took place in Monterey. 

The allegation prompted a discussion among Wiles, Trump’s legal team and Hegseth, who described the allegation as a consensual encounter and a classic case of he-said, she-said, the magazine reported. 

Timothy Parlatore, a former Trump lawyer who frequently represents current and former members of the U.S. military, told Vanity Fair: “This allegation was already investigated by the Monterey police department and they found no evidence for it.” 

Hegseth is a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan with a handful of military medals, including two Bronze Stars, and has undergraduate and graduate degrees from Princeton and Harvard.

Since 2019, Hegseth has been married to his third wife, Fox News producer Jennifer Rauchet. The two were married at Trump’s National Gold Club in Colts Neck, New Jersey. 

Hegseth and his first wife, Meredith Schwarz, divorced in 2009. He and his second wife, Samantha Deering, divorced in 2017, the year he was investigated for the alleged sexual assault.

Disagreement over Hegseth’s qualifications

Following Trump’s Tuesday night announcement that he would nominate Hegseth to be his defense secretary, many have questioned whether the 44-year-old co-host of “Fox & Friends Weekends” can handle managing the Defense Department, which has a budget of $842 billion, almost three million employees and 750 military installations around the world.

“The Pentagon is in need of real reform, and they’re getting a leader who has grit to make it happen,” said Trump’s pick for national security adviser, Republican Rep. Mike Waltz of Florida, in a post on the social media platform X. Waltz is a former Army Green Beret colonel. 

Democratic Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado, who served in the Army’s elite 75th Ranger Regiment in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Hegseth was not “remotely qualified” to be defense secretary. 

“The SecDef [secretary of defense] makes life-and-death decisions daily that impact over 2 million troops around the globe. This is not an entry-level job for a TV commentator,” Crow said on X. “The Senate should do its job and deny this nomination.”

Hegseth’s controversial views

Hegseth is a longtime conservative and staunch Trump ally who has talked about changes Trump should make at the Pentagon.

He said the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Charles Q. Brown should be fired for “pursuing the radical positions of left-wing politicians.”

And he believes women should not be in combat for the U.S. military, a point he reiterated last week in an interview with “The Shawn Ryan Show” podcast. 

Ahead of then President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration in January 2021, The Associated Press reported that 12 U.S. National Guard members were removed from helping to secure the event after vetting by the U.S. military and FBI. The members made extremist statements in posts or text messages or had ties with right-wing militia groups. 

Hegseth revealed during his interview Shawn Ryan, a former Navy SEAL, that he was one of the National Guard members removed from securing the inauguration.

Volcanoes were erupting on the mysterious far side of the moon billions of years ago just like on the side that we can see, new research confirms.

Researchers analyzed lunar soil brought back by China’s Chang’e-6, the first spacecraft to return with a haul of rocks and dirt from the little-explored far side.

Two separate teams found fragments of volcanic rock that were about 2.8 billion years old. One piece was even more ancient, dating back to 4.2 billion years.

“To obtain a sample from this area is really important because it’s an area that otherwise we have no data for,” said Christopher Hamilton, a planetary volcano expert at the University of Arizona who was not involved with the research.

Scientists know there were active volcanoes on the near side, the part of the moon seen from Earth, dating back to a similar time frame. Previous studies, including data from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, suggested the far side might also have a volcanic past. The first samples from that region facing away from Earth confirm an active history.

The results were published Friday in the journal Science.

China has launched several spacecraft to the moon. In 2020, the Chang’e-5 spacecraft returned moon rocks from the near side, the first since those collected by NASA’s Apollo astronauts and Soviet Union spacecraft in the 1970s. The Chang’e-4 spacecraft became the first to visit the moon’s far side in 2019.

The moon’s far side is pockmarked by craters and has fewer of the near side’s flat, dark plains carved by lava flows. Why the two halves are so different remains a mystery, said study co-author Qiu-Li Li from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Li said the new findings reveal over 1 billion years of volcanic eruptions on the lunar far side. Future research will determine how the activity lasted so long.

China’s moon program is part of a growing rivalry with the U.S. — still the leader in space exploration — and others, including Japan and India. China launched a three-member crew on its own space station orbiting the Earth, and it aims to put astronauts on the moon by 2030. More Chinese lunar probe missions are planned over the next four years. 

NASA plans its first piloted Artemis mission late next year, launching three NASA astronauts and a Canadian flyer on a looping voyage around the moon and back to test the agency’s Orion crew transport ship.

contributed to this report.