Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump's choice for secretary of defense, cheated on his first wife at least five times in his failed first marriage, according to a new report.
In an expose in Vanity Fair, Hegseth's short-lived marriage to his high school sweetheart, Meredith Schwarz, ended after four years. She cited infidelity when filing for divorce in 2008, according to sources familiar with the situation.
Issues surfaced early on for the high school sweethearts, who married in 2004 after attending separate colleges. After graduating from Forest Lake (Minn.) High School in 1999, she attended Barnard while he transitioning into a conservative cultural lightning rod at Princeton. It didn't take long for marital issues to arise, the report said.
"She was gaslighted by him heavily throughout their relationship," one of the sources told Vanity Fair. "As far as everyone else was concerned, they were viewed by many as this all-American power couple that were making big things for themselves."
However, their divorce came while Hegseth was dating his next wife, Samantha Deering, whom he met while working for Vets for Freedom in Washington, DC. They were married in 2010 and had three kids before Hegseth's infidelity again came to light.
Deering allegedly filed for divorce after Hegseth fathered a child with Jennifer Rauchet, his producer at Fox News. They were married in 2019, but a 2017 charge of sexual assault against Hegseth while attending a Republican women's conference in California again raised alarms.
Hegseth denies any wrongdoing despite paying the woman to keep the incident confidential.
"The matter was fully investigated, and I was completely cleared," Hegseth told reporters last month when the case came to light following his nomination. And that's where I'm going to leave it."
The case raises more questions about Hegseth's fitness for office. The report said the Trump team was caught off guard by the 2017 incident, and increasing claims of his infidelity are creating an uphill battle for his confirmation.
