Sexual assault allegation, women in combat: 5 controversies at Pete Hegseth's confirmation hearing
Infidelity
Kaine also brought up how the nominee had two failed marriages and had engaged in adultery, having fathered a child out of wedlock with his current wife while he was married to his second wife.
“You think you were ‘completely cleared’ because you committed no crime?” Kaine said. “You had just fathered a child two months before by a woman that was not your wife. I am shocked that you would stand here and say you’re ‘completely cleared.’ Can you so casually cheat on a second wife and cheat on the mother of a child that had been born two months before?”
Hegseth responded that “her child’s name is Gwendolyn Hope Hegseth, and she is a child of God and she’s 7 years old. I’m glad she’s here.”
“And you cheated on the mother of that child less than two months after that daughter was born,” Kaine interjected. “How do you explain your judgment?”
When Kaine pressed about his failures to live up to the vows given at his first two weddings, Hegseth replied that “as I’ve acknowledged to everyone in this committee, I’m not a perfect person, not claiming to be.”
“I have failed in things in my life and thankfully I am redeemed by my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,” Hegseth continued, claiming that he was “an open book” to the committee.
When Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., asked Hegseth to respond “true or false” about multiple incidents of alleged drunken misconduct, Hegseth repeatedly labeled the incidents as “anonymous smears.”