Senator Lindsey Graham has declared that allegations against defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth, which include rape, don’t “count” because they’ve come from anonymous sources, one day after calling the accusations “very disturbing.”
Speaking to Sean Hannity on Wednesday, Graham declared: “I’ve known Pete for a long time. I served with him in Afghanistan. The people over there said nothing but great things about him. The allegations against Pete are all anonymous sources. I am not gonna make any decision based on an anonymous source. If you’re not willing to raise your hand under oath and make the accusation, it doesn’t count. I’ve heard everything about all these people—none of it counts.”
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As the Daily Beast notes, neither Graham nor Hannity felt the need to acknowledge that the 2017 rape accusation—which Hegseth denies and which did not result in charges—was made by a woman who ultimately signed a nondisclosure agreement after being paid to keep the story quiet, meaning she is likely barred from speaking about the matter. The New York Times revealed last week, too, that during Hegseth’s second divorce, his own mother, who is very much not anonymous, told him that he “abused” women and should “get some help and take an honest look” at himself. (Hegseth’s mother told the Times she “had sent her son an immediate follow-up email at the time apologizing for what she had written.”)
Elsewhere, the former Fox News host was accused in a whistleblower report, obtained by The New Yorker, of allegedly “being repeatedly intoxicated while acting in his official capacity [as president of Concerned Veterans for America]—to the point of needing to be carried out of the organization’s events.” The report also claimed that “Hegseth had to be restrained while drunk from joining the dancers on the stage of a Louisiana strip club, where he had brought his team,” and that, while married, he “sexually pursued the organization’s female staffers.” (In response to The New Yorker’s report, Hegseth’s lawyer sent a statement from “an adviser” to the nominee that read: “We’re not going to comment on outlandish claims laundered through The New Yorker by a petty and jealous disgruntled former associate of Mr. Hegseth’s. Get back to us when you try your first attempt at actual journalism.”) The identity of a whistleblower is often kept anonymous in order to shield them from retribution; Donald Trump and a number of people he’s nominated to serve in his second administration have vowed to use the power of the federal government to get back at perceived enemies.
Graham’s remarks to Hannity would likely come as a surprise to the Graham of one day prior, who told CBS News on Tuesday that some of the reports detailing accusations against Hegseth were “very disturbing” and “going to be difficult” to defend against.
