Hegseth Routinely Passed Out from Alcohol Abuse, Witness Says
Trump’s Pentagon pick has denied allegations, calling them part of a ‘smear campaign’
“Pete Hegseth, President Trump’s pick to run the Pentagon, regularly abused alcohol to the point that he passed out at family gatherings, and once needed to be dragged out of a strip club while in uniform, according to an ex-relative’s account of his behavior that was given to U.S. lawmakers and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The sworn statement, submitted in response to a request from Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, was signed by Hegseth’s former sister in law, Danielle Hegseth. It states that she was with Hegseth when he passed out from drunkenness in the bathroom of a bar in Minneapolis in about 2013. It also describes another night, when she said Hegseth drank so much at a restaurant in Minneapolis that the Uber driver had to pull over on Interstate 94 so he could throw up.
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In the sworn statement, Hegseth’s former sister-in-law also said that Hegseth’s ex-wife, Samantha, told her that she once hid from Hegseth in a closet because she feared for her personal safety, sometime between 2014 and 2016.
She said that Samantha had a “code word” with her and another person close to her and that Samantha had made a plan in case she needed to get away from Hegseth. Danielle Hegseth said that Samantha texted the code to her in 2015 or 2016. She said the code meant that she should call the other person to fly out to Minnesota to help Samantha, which Danielle said she did. …”
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That code word story is a serious allegation — long term fear generating a safety plan, not just that one night he was scary drunk (which would be bad enough, but not indicative of a pattern).
