Pete Hegseth, the nominee for Defence Secretary, is said to have abused women in the past. The disclosure stemmed from a 2018 email sent by Penelope Hegseth to her son, in which she chastised him for lacking character, notably for mistreating women. The email was initially reported by The New York Times. “On behalf of all the women (and I know it’s many) you have abused in some way, I say … get some help and take an honest look at yourself,” Mrs. Hegseth wrote.

“I have no respect for any man who belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps with, and exploits women for his own power and ego.” You are that man (and have been for years), and as your mother, it hurts and embarrasses me to say it, but it is the sad, terrible reality,” she went on. In an interview published Friday in the New York Times, Ms. Hegseth said she sent the email “in anger, with emotion,” while Mr. Hegseth and his second wife, Samantha Hegseth, were going through a nasty divorce.

“This is not true. “It has never been true,” Ms. Hegseth stated. “I know my son. “He is a good father and husband.” The email was discovered as Mr. Hegseth prepares for confirmation hearings in the Republican-controlled Senate, and as questions swirl about a settlement payment he made to a woman who accused him of sexual assault in Monterey, California, an encounter he insisted was consensual and for which he was never charged. Mr. Hegseth’s attorney stated that, although his client was “visibly intoxicated” at the time of the complaint, the woman was “the aggressor in the encounter.” The silent settlement payment for an undisclosed amount was made out of fear that Mr. Hegseth would lose his job as a weekend host for “Fox.”