Timothy Parlatore, an attorney representing defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth, said a woman who accused his client of sexual assault was at fault because she was "being seductive."
During a Thursday interview, right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk asked Parlatore to explain the 2017 sexual assault allegations against Hegseth.
"You know she's lying," the attorney said, referring to a police report. "She goes upstairs with Pete, and she's back in her hotel room with her husband at 4 a.m. in that, you know, a very brief period of time. Her husband says no slow words, slurred words, steady gait. She wasn't drugged."
"All of her co-workers are saying in the bar they saw her flirting with him," he continued. "The police investigators went to the surveillance cameras and they showed she's the one leading him upstairs."
"She's the one grabbing him by the arm and smiling and being seductive."
Parlatore called the sexual encounter "consensual" and said the woman had "regrets."
"So it is something that the police were able to very easily look at and say, this was a consensual encounter," he opined. "There was no sexual assault."
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In fact, investigators in Monterey, California, did not determine that the woman's claims were false. The police report concluded that the case should be forwarded to the Monterey County District Attorney's Office, which declined to press charges.
"No charges were supported by proof beyond a reasonable doubt," Monterey County District Attorney Jeannine M. Pacioni said in a recent statement.
Hegseth later reached a settlement with the woman out of court.
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