The mom of Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choose for secretary of protection, wrote him an e mail in 2018 saying he had routinely mistreated ladies for years and displayed a scarcity of character.
“On behalf of all the women (and I know it’s many) you have abused in some way, I say … get some help and take an honest look at yourself,” Penelope Hegseth wrote, stating that she nonetheless liked him.
She additionally wrote: “I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego. You are that man (and have been for years) and as your mother, it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth.”
Mrs. Hegseth, in a cellphone interview with The New York Occasions on Friday, stated that she had despatched her son a direct follow-up e mail on the time apologizing for what she had written. She stated she had fired off the unique e mail “in anger, with emotion” at a time when he and his spouse had been going by means of a really troublesome divorce.
Within the interview, she defended her son and disavowed the feelings she had expressed within the preliminary e mail about his character and therapy of ladies. “It is not true. It has never been true,” she stated. She added: “I know my son. He is a good father, husband.” She stated that publishing the contents of the primary e mail was “disgusting.”
Questions on Mr. Hegseth’s therapy of ladies have emerged within the weeks since Mr. Trump selected him, a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, to steer the Pentagon. The problem is predicted to be a topic of scrutiny throughout Senate affirmation hearings.
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