Pete Hegseth, a National Guard officer at the time, was seeking to go on their mission. “I had never heard of anybody — before or since then — volunteering to serve as an infantryman, especially as a platoon leader,

President-elect Donald Trump's Cabinet picks were back on Capitol Hill to shore up support among GOP senators, including his embattled Pentagon pick Pete Hegseth.

Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, has repeatedly criticized policies allowing gay people to serve openly in the US military, calling them part of a “Marxist” agenda to prioritize social justice over combat readiness.

The woman who accused Hegseth of raping her at a fall 2017 conference, resulting in a police report but no criminal prosecution, also has a name: Hegseth paid her an undisclosed sum to make the allegation go away, his attorney currently threatening to sue her if she comes forward and repeats the claim again.