Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s Defense secretary nominee, faced down more than four hours of questioning from the Senate Armed Services Committee on Jan. 14, as the committee weighed his qualifications for the top Pentagon position.

In his prepared statement to the committee, Hegseth emphasized his focus on advancing the warrior ethos of the U.S. military, and initiatives to expand and reorient the force to deter conflicts with nation-state adversaries, namely China. Hegseth also pledged the force will “remain patriotically apolitical and stridently constitutional.”

“Unlike the current administration, politics should play no part in military matters,” Hegseth added.

Hegseth said service members forced from the ranks for declining the COVID-19 vaccination will have an opportunity to be reinstated and “will receive an apology, back pay, and rank that they lost.”

While Hegseth vowed to keep politics out of the military, Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) noted comments the nominee had made, asserting elements of the political left “hate the foundational ideas of America.” Reed, the ranking member on the committee, questioned whether service members with differing politics can trust that they won’t be targeted under Hegseth’s leadership.

”The challenge of the secretary of defense is to remove partisan politics from the military; you propose to inject it,” Reed said. 

Lawmakers also pressed Hegseth on comments he’s made about women serving in combat roles, including a Nov. 7 podcast appearance in which Hegseth said: “I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles.” 

In other comments, Hegseth has framed his concern around standards being lowered simply to make combat roles more accessible to women. In recent remarks, Hegseth insisted he supports women who contribute across all military roles.

The hearing frequently ventured beyond policy questions, to concerns about Hegseth’s personal conduct. Lawmakers pressed the nominee over an allegation he committed a sexual assault in 2017, and claims of alcoholism.

Hegseth has denied the sexual assault allegations, insisted the 2017 encounter was consensual, and asserted law enforcement investigators had cleared him of wrongdoing. He’s insisted the claims he has a drinking problem are false, and has said he wouldn’t drink at all as defense secretary.

During her questioning time, Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) tested Hegseth’s commitment to remain sober as defense secretary, including asking if he’d resign if he had a drink. 

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) similarly pressed Hegseth on whether a sexual assault should disqualify someone from serving as defense secretary.

Hegseth repeated his denials of the alcoholism and sexual assault accusations and declined to answer what he insisted are hypotheticals.

Pushing back on Hegseth’s detractors, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) turned the questions on Democrats on the Senate committee. 

“How many senators have shown up drunk to vote at night? Have any of you guys asked them to step down and resign from their job?” Mullin asked.

Later on Tuesday, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), a key member of the Armed Services panel, veteran and survivor of sexual assault, came out in support of Hegseth, bolstering his nomination.

—Ryan Morgan

BOOKMARKS

President-elect Donald Trump has announced the creation of an External Revenue Service (ERS) that will take over the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s job of collecting tariffs. Trump says the agency will launch on his first day in office, and will be used to correct the imbalance of “soft and pathetically weak” trade agreements.

Former special counsel Jack Smith says in a newly-released report that the U.S. Supreme Court needs to reexamine the question of presidential immunity. Smith’s comments come after a decision by the High Court saying the president is entitled to “at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts,” a ruling that hamstrung some efforts to prosecute Trump. 

The U.S. Supreme Court has let stand a ruling by a lower court, which affirmed Maryland’s law requiring a state license to buy a handgun. A U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit had agreed with gun rights group “Maryland Shall Issue” that the law introduced delays in purchasing a gun, but said that it did not necessarily infringe on 2nd Amendment rights.  

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has ordered flags at the Capitol to fly at full-staff on Inauguration Day, flouting a previous President Joe Biden order, and the U.S. flag code. The outgoing president had ordered all flags at half-mast for 30 days to mourn the death of former President Jimmy Carter, but Johnson and others felt the celebration of a new president merited an exception.

The FBI and Department of Justice have recently finished a special tech operation that removed malware from 4,200 U.S. computers. The court-authorized operation—conducted by a French cybersecurity firm—targeted malware introduced by Chinese-funded hacker groups. 

—Stacy Robinson