Ex-Trump aide says president-elect's defense nominee may be vulnerable to 'blackmail'
A former White House aide said that Donald Trump's nominee for defense secretary was vulnerable to blackmail due to his past behavior.
Pete Hegseth's attorney threatened legal action against a woman who accused the former Fox News host and Pentagon nominee of sexual assault, saying she had violated a nondisclosure agreement after accepting a settlement over her allegations, but former Trump aide Alyssa Farah Griffin told CNN the whole scenario made him unqualified to lead the Department of Defense.
"Listen, there are jobs in the federal government where you can, frankly, have these kind of past allegations, and it would be fine – it won't affect your work," Griffin said. "The Pentagon is something where we look for people of the highest moral character who can't be exploited by our adversaries. China, Russia, Iran are watching to see who the secretary of defense is, and if there's stuff they can dig up for blackmail purposes, for exploitation purposes, that's dangerous."
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Attorney Tim Parlatore told CNN on Thursday night that Hegseth's name has been put forward to undergo an FBI background check, which the Trump transition team has resisted for the president-elect's nominees, and Griffin said these allegations show why it's important for senators to know about the past actions of individuals who might serve in the Cabinet.
"That's why those jobs go to the highest level of vetting," she said, "and I think that it's going to be a real problem for Hegseth. There's also this new reporting that there is serious discussion going on within the Biden White House right now of considering offering preemptive pardons and/or legal aid to people who might become targets of Donald Trump when he comes into office."
So far, there don't appear to be enough Republican holdouts to sink Hegseth's nomination, but Griffin is among many observers who don't think he'll be confirmed.
"Trump's got to be with his nominees until he's not," she said. "What will ultimately, in my prediction, happen if Hegseth doesn't go through and get confirmed is senators are going to go to [the president-elect] and say the votes simply aren't there, give us another option. We're going to get that person through. They're not going to make it Donald Trump's problem."
"The math is not matching for Pete Hegseth, and I don't see how he could overcome the hurdles on kind of qualifications alone," Griffin added. "Listen, he's a veteran, but he's never run an organization of this size. He'd be young for the role and then add to that, you've got these allegations that are hard to look past."
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