President-elect Donald Trump’s Secretary of Defense pick Pete Hegseth defended his leadership of two veteran advocacy groups Wednesday amid allegations of misconduct during his tenure.
The 44-year-old Army veteran and former head of Vets for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America has faced allegations of drunken sexual impropriety and financial mismanagement stemming from his time running the groups, which he forcefully denied in a Wall Street Journal op-ed Wednesday.
“Like veterans returning from any war, we drank beers to manage the reality of what we had faced,” Hegseth wrote, referring to his time as executive director of Vets for Freedom.
“But we never did anything improper, and we treated everyone with respect,” he added. “We had a new mission and fought for it.”
Hegseth blamed the “tactical mistake” of overspending in support of John McCain during the 2008 presidential race for the reason he has been accused of mismanaging the organization’s finances.
“We were a bit naive, so we doubled down on our political spending at the very end, when other groups pulled back,” he wrote. “It was a tactical mistake, which left us in debt (like most political campaigns). But I stayed with the organization until all the debt was paid off and outstanding contracts negotiated.”
After his tenure at Vets for Freedom, Hegseth served as the CEO of Concerned Veterans for America.
The secretary of defense-designate fumed that media reports have made it seem as if he ran CVA like “a college frat house.”
“We had hundreds of employees and thousands of volunteers—yet based on the anonymous accusations of a few disgruntled employees, the legacy media has made it sound as if we ran a college frat house,” Hegseth wrote. “That’s just untrue.”
The Minnesota native was adamant that he was not forced out of his leadership position at CVA – as reported by The New Yorker earlier this week.
“What is true is that as our organization grew, there was an internal difference of opinion about its future,” Hegseth wrote. “I wanted to engage in foreign policy; our donors didn’t.”
“Eventually, the organization and I parted ways,” he added. “The feeling was mutual, and the organization’s leadership wrote me a glowing letter when I left.”
“Few groups in Washington ever accomplish as much as we did,” he said of his time at CVA.
In his op-ed, Hegseth went on to slam the media for “peddling anonymous story after anonymous story, all meant to smear me and tear me down.”
“It’s a textbook manufactured media takedown,” he wrote, defiantly noting that he looks forward to “an honest confirmation hearing with our distinguished senators—not a show trial in the press.”
Hegseth’s op-ed follows a report in the Wall Street Journal Tuesday indicating that Trump, 78, is considering tapping Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to replace his embattled pick to lead the Pentagon.
If all Senate Democrats and four Senate Republicans vote against Hegseth’s nomination, he would fail the confirmation vote.
A GOP source familiar told The Post Wednesday that there are currently zero Republicans who would vote against Hegseth at his confirmation hearing.
