President-elect Donald Trump's pick for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News anchor, paid his sexual assault accuser an undisclosed amount of money and made her sign a nondisclosure agreement in 2017, his personal lawyer confirmed on Monday.
"They threatened to file a lawsuit, knowing that the likelihood of success was minimal, but the mere public filing would cause him to lose his job," Tim Parlatore, Hegseth's lawyer since 2017, told Military.com.
"He was a victim of blackmail," Parlatore continued.
The alleged incident occurred at a hotel in Monterey, California, on Oct. 8, 2017.
According to "a detailed memo was sent to the Trump transition team this week by a woman who said she is a friend of the accuser," the victim was a 30-year-old conservative group staffer whom Hegseth raped in his hotel room after drinking at the bar, as reported by the Washington Post. She suffered bruising on her thigh but no additional information was provided.
Hegseth's lawyer does not deny the two were intimate but said it was consensual, according to Military.com.
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