Forest Lake native Pete Hegseth faces new scrutiny, support as Trump defense nominee

Talk to people in Forest Lake about Pete Hegseth and you’ll hear about his first-in-his-class academic honors, his three-point shot that took the high school basketball team to the state tournament and his years of service in the military.

Some people knew the Forest Lake native, who went on to become a Fox News host and best-selling author, long before he was accused of sexual assault — allegations that surfaced this month after president-elect Donald Trump picked Hegseth to lead the Defense Department.

Hegseth, 44, has also been scrutinized for a lack of political and leadership experience and divisive past remarks. But some of his former classmates from his hometown, and some Republicans in Congress, still see him as a top choice for the national job.

“Pete Hegseth is a class act,” said Brooke Hennessey, who has known Hegseth since kindergarten. “He is a scholar. He was an amazing athlete. He is a proud American who served his country and he would do a phenomenal job being in Trump’s Cabinet. Period.”

Hegseth hasn’t responded to messages from the Minnesota Star Tribune seeking comment.

Before Hegseth can be confirmed by the full U.S. Senate, he will need to get approval from the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is expected to hold hearings on his confirmation in January. He’ll need a simple majority of the committee to approve him to go to a full Senate vote. An FBI background check also will be conducted.

Several senators on the committee — both Republican and Democratic — had mixed reactions this week when asked if they thought he’d be confirmed or how they plan to vote on Hegseth. If he’s confirmed, he’ll oversee 3.4 million service members and civil servants, and an $840 billion annual defense budget.

“We start with the president receiving the benefit of the doubt on his nominations, but we still have the responsibility for going through and vetting each individual,” said Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., thinks the Senate will confirm Hegseth. “I don’t listen to any allegations because he’s got to come in front of my committee,” he said.

But Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, plans to confront Hegseth about the allegations and thinks that, if true, they could be “a disqualifier.”

Asked if he would vote to confirm Hegseth, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said he thinks he’s “objectively and unequivocally unqualified.”

“I’m certainly unpersuaded that he should be confirmed,” he added.

Hegseth’s lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, told the Associated Press that the 2017 sexual encounter now in question was consensual and no charges were filed, but Hegseth later paid the woman as part of a confidential settlement.

“He was cleared over 7 years ago,” Parlatore told the Minnesota Star Tribune in an email.

A thousand miles from Washington, D.C., the reaction to Trump’s selection and the new allegations has been different in Hegseth’s hometown of 21,000 residents.

Karen Morehead, a former longtime member of Forest Lake’s school board, has known Hegseth since he was little, and was with Penny Hegseth last week at the moment her son was named by Trump. Morehead was excited by the selection and for Hegseth’s family, but she was also shocked to hear of the sexual assault allegations. She still believes Hegseth would make an excellent choice, and said he should be judged by the entirety of his life.

“I’m sure he’d be the first person to say he’s made a mistake, but who among us hasn’t?” she said. “I would like President Trump to be able to put together a Cabinet that he thinks is going to work.”

Some Forest Lake locals also remember Hegseth as the hardworking student who graduated at the top of the Forest Lake High School class of 1999. Back then, he was the disciplined point guard who set school records for three-point shots.

His rise to national prominence didn’t surprise Forest Lake 1999 graduate Doug Daninger, who has known Hegseth since second grade when they met on the basketball court.

“He was always really well disciplined and you could tell he had a kind of leadership role in his future,” he said.

Although Hegseth hasn’t lived in Forest Lake for a long time, his parents still do. His father, Brian, was a teacher and the head basketball coach at Forest Lake before taking the athletic director position at Centennial High School. He is now retired. He and his wife couldn’t be reached for comment.

Hegseth went on to attend Princeton University and was later commissioned in the National Guard, serving three deployments to Cuba, Iraq and Afghanistan before retiring with in 2021 with 20 years of service.

He became a political commentator for Fox News in 2014, and co-host of “Fox & Friends Weekend” from 2017 to 2024. A few years ago, on a special Fox segment, Hegseth and Fox News commentator Brian Brenberg, who also grew up in Forest Lake, returned to their hometown to visit their old neighborhood.

Though Hegseth has a military background, his lack of experience on Capitol Hill or in leading a large organization — the Defense Department is the nation’s largest employer — is likely to leave him “woefully unprepared” if he’s confirmed, said Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Defense and Security Department in Washington, D.C.

“He talked about himself as a warrior, focused on warriors, not a bureaucrat,” Cancian said. “And basically, he’s going have to hire a whole bunch of bureaucrats, experienced bureaucrats, to help them run the place.”

Hegseth has also made it clear that he’s not a traditional military candidate, saying in his new book that the next commander in chief needs to “clean house” and he has criticized generals for being “woke.”

Retired National Guardsman Dave Thul of Owatonna was part of the “draft Pete” movement, which sought in 2012 to get Hegseth to run against Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar. He’s since fallen away from Hegseth. Thul recalls Hegseth was skeptical of Trump then, a view that he said changed after Trump was elected in 2016.

“The Pete that I knew was a great soldier; he was tactically proficient. He was very pragmatic in terms of what we were doing in Iraq and in Afghanistan, and very conscious of not being a conquering force,” Thul said last week. “I don’t see that in him today. I see more of, I guess, wanting to take revenge or settle some grudges with a military policy of ... the cultural shift to the left if you will.”

According to the Associated Press, a fellow military member flagged Hegseth as a possible ‘’Insider Threat’' due to a tattoo he has that’s been tied to white supremacist groups.

Members of Minnesota’s congressional delegation were divided over Hegseth or refused to talk about him. Klobuchar and Sen. Tina Smith, both Democrats, expressed concerns about Hegseth’s nomination in statements before the new allegations were public, with Smith saying last week he has “zero experience managing on this scale” and was “clearly chosen more based on his political loyalty than on his qualifications and readiness for the job.” Klobuchar added last week she’s concerned about his past remarks that women should not serve in combat.

Republican Rep. Brad Finstad, Minnesota’s only member of the House Armed Services Committee, repeatedly declined to comment. After hearing about the allegations, Republican Rep. Pete Stauber said Hegseth will have to make his case to the Senate. Before the allegations surfaced, he said Hegseth would be a good fit for the job as a veteran and Minnesotan.

U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, a Democrat who serves as ranking member on the Defense subcommittee, questioned Hegseth’s lack of experience.

“I do thank him for his service, but just because you wore uniform and served in combat doesn’t mean that you have all the equipment needed to run the Department of Defense,” McCollum said last week before the sexual misconduct allegations were revealed.

Back in Forest Lake, Blake Roberts, a City Council member who was elected mayor this month, said the city has been thrilled about the possibility that the president’s Cabinet might include someone from the northeast suburb, which had about 7,000 residents when Hegseth was in high school.

“My personal opinion of being proud of him hasn’t changed,” Roberts said this week about the allegations. “It sounds like an unfortunate situation in which alcohol might have been in play and some bad choices might have been made.”

The Forest Lake residents he has spoken to are still proud of Hegseth and want to see him succeed, he added.

“Hopefully he gets an opportunity to do what he does,” Roberts said, “and I think he’ll be a great secretary of defense.”