Accusation of sexual assault, excessive consumption of alcohol, lack of experience: despite controversies, Pete Hegseth heads on Friday towards confirmation to the American Senate of his appointment by Donald Trump at the head of the Pentagon.
• Read also: Trump’s candidate at the Ministry of Defense Pete Hegseth would have paid $ 50,000 to reduce a victim of a silence sexual assault
• Read also: “You are not qualified”: assault in good standing in the American Senate against the potential Minister of Defense of Trump
In the United States, the Constitution requires that the appointments of ministers and other senior officials be confirmed by a vote in the Senate. For Pete Hegseth as Minister of Defense, this vote is expected from 9 p.m. to Washington.
The Republicans have 53 seats out of 100 in the upper Congress House, but two majority senators have already said that they will vote against the appointment of the current presenter of Fox News.
Mega/if
In a statement, senator Lisa Murkowski said that this appointment posed “considerable concerns” on which she could not “close her eyes”.
She also quotes the opposition expressed by Pete Hegseth to the presence of women in the fighting troops. Since his statements in November, the former soldier said he returned to this opposition.
In the case – currently unlikely – where two other Republicans would join the refractory senators, the appointment would be rejected. A situation never seen for a minister since 1989 and which would constitute a scathing setback for Donald Trump a few days after his return to the White House.
«Woke»
Pete Hegseth became known to the Americans over the past ten years as a presenter at Fox News, the preservative’s favorite channel in the United States.
Getty Images via AFP
At the age of 44, he had to take the lead of a ministry with a pharaonic budget of 850 billion dollars annually and employing some three million soldiers, reservists, and civilians.
His main mission, he said in mid-January during his confirmation hearing before a Senate commission, will be to “bring back the culture of the warrior” to the Pentagon.
-Pete Hegseth has repeatedly assured that he wanted to reform the pentagon from top to bottom, which has become too “woke” and acquired to an ideology too on the left, according to him.
The announcement of the appointment of Pete Hegseth in November had aroused an outcry in opposition.
AFP
Faced with the Armed Forces Commission, the Democratic senators had notably questioned him on an accusation of sexual assault.
Dating from 2017 in California, she emerged after the announcement of her appointment. The former soldier, who denies any unconted relationship, had reached a financial agreement of $ 50,000 a few years later with the one who accused him, to prevent prosecution.
“Not qualified”
Opposition elected officials had also disappeared during the hearing his lack of experience to direct such an important portfolio.
“M. Hegseth, you are not qualified, “said senator Tammy Duckworth.
This former combat helicopter pilot in the army, amputated by both legs after its apparatus was targeted by a rocket in Iraq in 2004, criticized in a statement on Wednesday its opposition to the presence of women in the fighting troops.
Pete Hegseth is also suspected of having regularly excessive alcohol consumption.
“One of your colleagues said you were so drunk at an event in a bar that you sang” kill all Muslims “,” said senator Elizabeth Warren during the hearing.
Despite the controversies, Donald Trump maintained his choice at all costs. Still Friday, he described it as a “good man”.
