News that a California woman told police she was trapped in a hotel room and sexually assaulted by a President-elect Donald Trump Cabinet pick has stunned a shellshocked nation.
The police report revealed by CNN Thursday morning details disturbing allegations brought against Fox News host and Trump's choice for Defense secretary Pete Hegseth, among them that the woman remembered repeatedly saying "No."
"The Hegseth police records are really bad and disturbing," said Bulwark managing editor Sam Stein. "If the inclination is to say—ah well, it's a he-said-she-said scenario—then it's not clear what type of contemporaneous accounts and evidence will ever convince you that your guy did something wrong."
Hegseth's attorneys have admitted he paid the woman in a settlement but deny the allegations raised in the 22-page report, which appears to have been instigated by a nurse who sent police an alert about the woman's case, CNN reported.
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It also includes reports of Hegseth's behavior toward staff at the hotel where the woman said she was attacked, noted conservative commentator Tim Miller.
"Perfect MAGA scene," wrote Miller. "The twice divorced Sec. Def nominee shouting down a woman by the pool at 130 am and then berating hotel staff about having fReeDom oF sPEEch when they tell him to chill out."
The Fox News anchor is just one of multiple Trump nominees with allegations linked to sexual abuse in their background.
Trump's chosen attorney general Matt Gaetz has been accused of having sex with a minor, his chosen Education secretary Linda McMahon has been accused of covering up child sex abuse within World Wrestling Entertainment, his chosen health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been accused of sexually abusing his children's babysitter and ally Elon Musk has been accused of exposing himself to a flight attendant.
The president-elect was found liable for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll in a New York City department store in the 1990s and ordered to pay her $5 million.
In 2016, leaked video revealed Trump bragging that his celebrity status allowed him to grab women's genitals without consent.
These points were not lost upon political spectators Thursday.
"Um … the president-elect has bragged about being able to grab women by the genitals and last year was found by a jury to have jammed his fingers up a woman’s vagina against her will," wrote Huffington Post White House correspondent S.V. Dáte. "Doesn’t this make Hegseth even more of a star in Trump’s America?"
"Another one," said former President George W. Bush's White House ethics attorney Richard W. Painter. "Sanctimonious Senate Democrats who threw [Al Franken] under the bus over far less will probably now watch every one of these cabinet members get confirmed by Republicans."
"Between Gaetz, Gabbard, RFK, Dr. Oz, the WWE lady….it’s a lot," replied CNN's Ann Navarro-Cárdenas. "We owe it to the millions of men and women who serve in our military, to pay attention to this."