Fox News personality Pete Hegseth's attorney Tim Parlatore defended him vigorously Wednesday in an interview with CNN anchor Jake Tapper, as Hegseth's nomination to serve as President-elect Donald Trump's Secretary of Defense appears on the ropes amid allegations of sexual misconduct and alcohol abuse.
"What happened is, you know, he was the head of this organization, they did a lot of great work," said Parlatore, who is also known for representing Trump during some of his legal battles.
"Concerned Veterans of America," interjected Tapper.
"Yeah," said Parlatore. "And after these events, they oftentimes did get together for an afterparty. And that part of it is true. But the rest of it is not. And that's where the best lies come in, is you take something that is true and then you add additional facts to try and make it more nefarious than it is. And so all of these claims of what he allegedly did during these afterparties and, you know, the alcohol-fueled environment is really exaggerations on something that actually did happen."
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Parlatore cited as another example the recent reporting that Hegseth had to be physically restrained from groping dancers at a Louisiana strip club. "It wasn't Pete. He wasn't even there. He wasn't even in the state. You know, somebody else had that event. And so they took that event and just changed the name and said, 'Oh, it was Pete.' It wasn't."
"We should note that Pete acknowledges that there was a sexual encounter," said Tapper. "He says it was consensual. The woman had a different story. He did pay her an undisclosed sum. And to some people out there that might look like, well, that's guilt. That's an admission of guilt. You're his attorney. Explain why you disagree."
"Sure, it could look like guilt," said Parlatore. "It could also look like an extortion. And that's the way that I saw it at the time because this was something that was investigated by the police. The police found no basis whatsoever. In fact, one of the police officers told my investigator that before they interviewed Pete, based on the other witnesses' testimony and the video cameras, they were actually considering charging her with making a false story, with being the aggressor in this and taking advantage of him when he had too much to drink and he went in and he talked to them. And of course, you know, that kind of ended the idea of charging her. But you fast forward a few years and all of a sudden she comes in with a lawyer saying, 'We're going to file this, we're going to make it public unless you pay.'"
Hegseth had no choice but to pay regardless of guilt, he continued, because, "the reality is, unfortunately, especially for public figures, you know, during, you know, the Me Too movement, a public allegation that somebody had drugged and raped somebody, they're going to get fired immediately. Fox News isn't going to wait two years to find out what happens in court, any more than CNN or any other network would. He would have been fired right there."
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