Pete Hegseth’s ex-sister-in-law tells senators he was ‘abusive’ to second wife

WASHINGTON — An ex-sister-in-law of Pete Hegseth’s submitted a sworn statement to senators on Tuesday that accused Hegseth, President Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, of being so “abusive” toward his second wife that she once hid in a closet from him and had a safe word to call for help if she needed to get away from him.

In a Capitol Hill office on Tuesday afternoon, senators were reviewing the affidavit from Danielle Diettrich Hegseth, the former wife of Hegseth’s brother, which describes “erratic and aggressive” behavior by Pete Hegseth that caused his second wife to fear for her safety. According to a copy obtained by the New York Times, it also asserts that he frequently drank to excess both in public and private, including on one occasion she witnessed when he was wearing his military uniform.

The allegations, which Hegseth denied through his lawyer, surfaced as Republicans were working to speed him to confirmation, and could imperil that push. About a half-dozen Republicans who have learned of the accusations in recent days have privately raised serious concerns about them, according to people familiar with the conversations.

Yet just hours after the affidavit was filed, Republican leaders plowed ahead Tuesday night to schedule a vote on Hegseth’s confirmation, with several rank-and-file members of the party dismissing the sworn statement as a desperate attempt at character assassination that would fail.

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., the majority leader, began taking the necessary steps to limit debate and schedule an up-or-down vote within days, effectively closing off any avenue for senators to investigate further. And all Republicans voted to keep the nomination on track.

Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., who chairs the Armed Services Committee, said he did not expect the new disclosures to threaten Hegseth’s confirmation, and that the Senate would work into the weekend if necessary to ensure his swift approval. With Democrats expected to oppose Hegseth en masse on the floor, he can afford to lose only three Republican votes.

“The nomination is going to go forward,” Wicker told reporters, saying that while he had not reviewed the affidavit, he had “grave doubts as to the substance” and believed that its author “has an ax to grind.”

In her affidavit, Danielle Hegseth said she had spoken with the FBI about Pete Hegseth, and had come forward to Congress in the hopes that her account would persuade enough Republicans to block him. She said she was submitting her account at the request of Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee.

“I have been assured that making this public statement will ensure that certain senators who are still on the fence will vote against Hegseth’s confirmation,” she wrote. The affidavit was reported earlier by NBC News.

Reed said the account describes behavior that is disqualifying, and “confirms my fears” that the FBI background check on Hegseth had been incomplete.

“The alleged pattern of abuse and misconduct by Mr. Hegseth is disturbing,” he said. “This behavior would disqualify any service member from holding any leadership position in the military, much less being confirmed as the secretary of defense.”

In the affidavit, sent Tuesday to the Armed Services panel, Danielle Hegseth wrote that on one occasion between 2014 and 2016, Pete Hegseth’s second wife, Samantha Hegseth, “hid in her closet from Hegseth because she feared for her personal safety.”

She also said that Samantha Hegseth had given her a code word, shared with her and another person, that she would use if she needed help. According to the sworn statement, Samantha Hegseth texted Danielle Hegseth the code word once in either 2015 or 2016, and Danielle contacted the other person to put the plan into motion.

Danielle Hegseth said that she “did not personally witness physical or sexual abuse by Hegseth,” but described “erratic and aggressive behavior” by him over many years. She also recounted a number of instances in 2008 or 2009, as well as around 2013, in which she had witnessed Pete Hegseth being intoxicated to the point of passing out.

The new allegations are similar to a raft of accusations that had surfaced since Trump chose him to lead the Pentagon. Hegseth has adamantly denied the allegations and dismissed them as politically motivated smears from anonymous sources.

Tim Parlatore, a lawyer for Pete Hegseth, denied Danielle Hegseth’s charges in a statement.

“Sam has never alleged that there was any abuse; she signed court documents acknowledging that there was no abuse and recently reaffirmed the same during her FBI interview,” Parlatore said, accusing Danielle Hegseth of being “an anti-Trump far-left Democrat” who “had an ax to grind against the entire Hegseth family.”

Samantha Hegseth shares custody of three children with Pete Hegseth. She was interviewed by the FBI this month as part of her ex-husband’s background check. In one interview, she told investigators that Hegseth abused and continues to abuse alcohol, according to a person with knowledge of the findings. The FBI had no comment.

Samantha Hegseth could not be reached for comment Tuesday. In a statement to NBC News on Monday, before Danielle Hegseth filed her detailed affidavit, she said that “there was no physical abuse in my marriage” and that she would not speak further about the matter.

In a 2021 order, dealing with the appointment of a parenting coordinator, a Minnesota family court judge said that neither Pete nor Samantha Hegseth claimed to be a victim of domestic abuse. The judge also said that there was no determination by the court that there was probable cause to believe that one parent “has been physically abused or threatened with physical abuse by the other parent.”

The Times and other media organizations have documented a pattern of excessive drinking by Hegseth, although his former sister-in-law provided new details of that in her sworn statement. As for allegations that his behavior was so out of control that Samantha Hegseth felt she needed to protect herself from him, it is Danielle Hegseth’s word against that of Pete Hegseth, who is citing a court document in his favor.

Still, her affidavit is the first time that a former member of Pete Hegseth’s extended family has publicly alleged his personal conduct renders him unfit to lead the Pentagon. Hegseth’s mother wrote to her son in a 2018 email that he had mistreated women for years, but has since disavowed those sentiments.

Hegseth was also accused of raping a woman in Monterey, California, in 2017 while drunk. He has said that encounter was consensual and that he was never charged with a crime, although he paid a financial settlement to the woman who accused him.

Samantha Hegseth treated Danielle Hegseth as a confidante, according to people familiar with their relationship. Danielle was married to Pete Hegseth’s brother Nathaniel from 2011 to 2019; Samantha and Pete Hegseth were married from 2010 to 2018.

During his confirmation hearing, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., asked Hegseth if he had ever engaged in physical violence against any of his three wives.

“Senator, absolutely not,” Hegseth replied. Asked if physical violence toward a spouse ought to disqualify a nominee, he demurred, calling the question a hypothetical.

Hegseth described various other allegations as “anonymous smears.” Although he never admitted to personal misconduct, he spoke emphatically about being a changed man.

“I’m not a perfect person, but redemption is real,” he told senators. He also credited his current wife, Jennifer Rauchet, with having “changed my life.”

Many of the allegations in Danielle Hegseth’s affidavit detailed episodes of Pete Hegseth’s apparent drunkenness, and in some, she said, he made racial statements she found offensive.

“He drunkenly yelled in my face one night in 2009,” she wrote, recalling that Pete Hegseth had become upset after she walked out of a room when he was telling a story “with a racial slant that bothered me.”

“He was very aggressive, in my face, dressed in his military uniform,” she added.

In 2013, she said, Pete Hegseth drank so much at a family dinner at a Minneapolis restaurant that afterward an Uber driver had to pull over on an interstate highway so he could vomit. At another bar that same year, she said, Hegseth danced drunk with a glass of gin and tonic in each hand, dropped the glasses on the dance floor and had to be dragged out of the bar.

She said that she recounted to the FBI another episode that occurred in 2009, but said she did not have firsthand knowledge of it. She said she was told that after a drill with the National Guard, Hegseth was found at a nearby strip club, drunk and in uniform, getting lap dances.

She said the person who told her about the episode said that his behavior was a violation of military rules. That person’s name was redacted in the affidavit obtained by the Times.

On Tuesday, some rank-and-file Republicans were quick to dismiss Danielle Hegseth’s sworn allegations, likening them to a sexual assault allegation against Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings in 2018 that ultimately did not derail his path to the Supreme Court.

“This kind of reminds me of Kavanaugh, when everybody was trying to slaughter him and his character,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., a member of the Armed Services panel, told reporters Tuesday evening. “The media and those that did that should be ashamed of themselves. And this is the same thing. Pete is going to be the secretary of defense — period.”

Democrats who reviewed Danielle Hegseth’s affidavit on Tuesday said they were stunned by the litany of allegations. Several of them said that the FBI had not done a thorough enough job.

“It’s clear that the FBI has not followed up on the leads that it’s been given and has rushed through a report that is incomplete,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., told reporters Tuesday.

Maya C. Miller, Robert Jimison, Carl Hulse and Devlin Barrett contributed reporting. Kitty Bennett and Julie Tate contributed research.