Conservative Sex Scandals and Conduct Unbecoming?

By Cliff Kincaid

December 7, 2024

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The silliest “conservative” argument for confirmation of serial adulterer Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense is that some Senate Republicans voted to confirm a transgender as assistant Secretary of Heath and Human Services under Biden. In other words, let’s copy their decadence. Rachel Levine, a man who wears lipstick and a dress, is a four-star Admiral. Republicans, they say, should enthusiastically back Hegseth.

Can’t we do better than that?

Don’t the American people deserve better than someone who discovered his latest wife in the Fox News harem?

I was driving back home on Wednesday night, listening to conservative talk show host Vince Coglianese on WMAL in Washington, D.C., and heard him casually dismissing the claims about Trump nominee Pete Hegseth abusing his former wife. He said this was typical in divorce proceedings. As a conservative eager to uphold true family values, I called in to comment, but he went to a news broadcast, leaving me hanging and so I hung up. This is how conservative media censor true conservatives.

My point was going to be that the allegations came not from an ex-wife but from Hegseth’s own mother. That makes a big difference. If my mom had accused me of abusing my wife or ex-wife, with words like “dishonesty, sleeping around, betrayal, debasing, belittling” women, I would be astounded and shamed into silence. Instead, Hegseth went through a series of broken marriages and became a media star on Fox because of his good looks. Now he is Trump’s nominee to be chief of the Pentagon, under fire for a personal life that should not define our military and in fact should be rejected as unsuitable and unfit. He has engaged in what the military calls “conduct unbecoming”

It is typical for a husband and wife to trade vicious allegations in divorce. The difference this time is that Hegseth’s mother made the charges.

I have never heard of a mother taking the side of the ex-wife. You would expect the mother to take her son’s side.

On his show, Coglianese, editorial director of Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller, noted that his mother subsequently went on Fox to say Pete was a great husband and father and that she had retracted the charges against him. I regard that as too late to undo the damage. The damage control in this case just won’t work. His mother knows the truth.

As a veteran of the Washington, D.C. scene, I never thought I would see a conservative president nominate someone of such dubious moral standing as Pentagon chief. But it’s not just about Hegseth. It’s about the sexual escapades at Fox News, where Hegseth was a star.

I think Hegseth, a combat veteran nominated by Trump to be Pentagon chief, is a truly sorry sight, perhaps suffering from combat-related mental problems, and worthy of treatment. If he is suffering from PTSD, he doesn’t belong in the post of Secretary of Defense. But I have more compassion for his first ex-wife, the victim.

Coglianese is typical of the “conservative” defense of Hegseth, especially his former colleagues in the Fox News “family,” where he came from. But it’s hard to take the crew at Fox News seriously, since the channel is notorious for sex scandals and functioning as a harem for the males employed there.

Sex scandals and adulterous affairs have characterized Fox News since the time when a group of women exposed how Fox founder Roger Ailes sexually harassed attractive women in his employ. His techniques eventually gave rise to the movie “Bombshell.”

Fox star Jesse Watters’ messy affair and divorce were the subject of countless stories. But he bounced back with a new wife, as the New York Post reported, “Guests at their wedding in Naples, Florida, included Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle, plus Eric and Lara Trump.”

Watters took over from former Fox star Bill O’Reilly, who is still trying to crush disclosures relating to the sex scandal allegations against him, years after he was forced out. He appears regularly on Newsmax and the Glenn Beck show.

Sadly, Vince Coglianese isn’t alone in following the MAGA party line on how Hegseth is a perfectly appropriate choice. Breitbart news, after listing those supporting the Hegseth nomination, maintained that Hegseth “has been under siege by a seemingly coordinated media smear campaign, driven by anonymous allegations as far back as a decade.”

The trouble with that claim is that his mother isn’t anonymous.

In the email obtained and published by the New York Times, his mother called his treatment of his ex-wife, Samantha Hegseth, “despicable and abusive.” She told him to “get some help and take an honest look at yourself.”

That’s good advice. He should get help, not get the top Pentagon job.

Here’s what she told him:

“You are an abuser of women — that is the ugly truth and I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego. You are that man (and have been for years) and as your mother, it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth.

“I am not a saint, far from it.. so don’t throw that in my face. but your abuse over the years to women (dishonesty, sleeping around, betrayal, debasing, belittling) needs to be called out…It’s time for someone (I wish it was a strong man) to stand up to your abusive behavior and call it out, especially against women.”

That “strong man” should have been Trump, who should have known about this history and should never have nominated Hegseth in the first place. Trump was betrayed by his staff, who didn’t vet this particular nominee. A simple Google search would have disclosed his multiple marriages.

Here’s the list of Hegseth supporters, as identified by Breitbart:

Will Cain, Hegseth’s former co-host at Fox News
Dan Bongino, podcast show host
Nicole Saphier, MD
Joey Johnny, Marine combat veteran and author
Kyle Becker, former Fox News writer/associate producer
Breanna Morello, podcast host/former Fox News producer
Piers Morgan, British TV host
Rob Smith, Iraq War veteran and Fox News commentator
William Case, former Fox News producer
Lisa Boothe, Fox News host
Clay Travis, founder of Outkick.com
Guy Benson, former co-host with Hegseth
Carol Roth, former Blaze coworker
Rachel Campos-Duffy, Fox News host
Evita Duffy, Bongino Report host
Sara Carter, Fox News contributor
Lara Logan, investigative journalist
Mollie Hemingway, editor-in-chief of the Federalist
Tomi Lahren, show host
Ximena Barreto, aide to Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)
Corey A. DeAngelis, American Culture Project senior fellow
Leo Terrell, Fox News contributor
Graham Allen, show host
Charlie Kirk, founder and CEO of Turning Point USA
Jason Rantz, radio show host
Monica Crowley, former Trump administration official and Fox News host
Jon Nicosia, president of News Cycle Media
Tony Shaffer, author, intelligence operative and Newsmax contributor
Janice Dean, Fox News cohost and weather anchor
Brian Brenberg, Fox News Business host
Dr. Carol Swain, author and political commentator
Catturd, popular conservative figure

I don’t understand why these 32 mostly conservative figures are backing a man with serious personal problems who has been indicted by his own mother for abusing women.

As Hegseth’s nomination goes down in flames, real conservatives should take note of what is happening and ask themselves if moral standards in American society have suffered to such an extent that Trump can’t find a good upstanding young man with conservative and military credentials to run the Pentagon.

In truth, the sexual revolution has infected Fox News for many years, resulting in more Cultural Marxism of the kind that that Hegseth claims to be fighting in his life and books.

A bio declares that “Pete and his wife Jenny live in Middle Tennessee and have 7 children—all of which they pray grow up to love God and country.”

This is touching. And when he went to Princeton, he co-wrote an editorial declaring that “the homosexual lifestyle is abnormal and immoral.”

However, his own lifestyle has been abnormal and immoral.

Here’s one description: “In 2004 Hegseth married Meredith Schwarz; the couple divorced in 2009. The following year he wed Samantha Deering, and they later had three children. In 2017 Pete Hegseth had a child with Jennifer Rauchet, who also worked at Fox News. Later that year he and Deering divorced, and Hegseth married Rauchet in 2019. At the time he also became stepfather to Rauchet’s three children from a previous marriage.”

This reference caught my eye, regarding his three marriages: “In 2017 Pete Hegseth had a child with Jennifer Rauchet, who also worked at Fox News.” Both took pictures with the president-elect.

Sounds like things haven’t changed much since the Roger Ailes days.

Conservatives deserve better. Trump deserves better.

E-Mail Cliff Kincaid: kincaid@comcast.net

Cliff Kincaid is president of America’s Survival, Inc. usasurvival.org