US President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, is facing scrutiny over an alleged sexual assault in 2017. The New York Times reports that a woman named Jane Doe says Hegseth sexually assaulted her at a convention in Monterey, California.
Hegseth’s team paid the woman in 2020 to keep quiet after she threatened legal action. Hegseth feared losing his job at Fox News if the allegation was made public.
As more details emerge, attention is turning to Hegseth’s personal life. CNN reports that the TV personality is a decorated army veteran.
Hegseth has been married to Jennifer Rauchet since 2019. He often posts about his family on social media. But their life wasn’t perfect from the start. You need to know about Rauchet, Hegseth’s favorite person.
The couple both worked at Fox. Rauchet is a TV producer. She graduated from Towson University in Maryland with a journalism degree.
Hegseth and Rauchet met when he was a TV host, and she was a producer. An executive said Rauchet favored Hegseth, according to US media.
Hegseth and Rauchet were in the news in 2017 for cheating. CNN reports that Hegseth was having an affair with Rauchet while married to Samantha Deering. The couple told management about their relationship after Rauchet learned she was pregnant.
She was moved to a different show so that she wouldn’t work with Hegseth. Ratchet was also married when she and Hegseth started dating.
Hegseth and Rauchet got married at a Trump golf club.
In 2017, they had a daughter, Gwen. Hegseth and Rauchet have three kids from before they met. The couple married in 2019 when their daughter was two. The wedding was at the Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey.
The couple wore “Make Weddings Great Again” hats to their wedding rehearsal. Hegseth often thanks his wife on social media. You’re the most beautiful, purposeful, and wonderful person I’ve ever met. “I thank God for you,” he wrote on her birthday in 2023.
Rauchet and Hegseth have seven children. The TV producer’s Instagram page is full of pictures of them.
In April last year, Tucker Carlson left Fox News after the network paid a million dollars to settle a lawsuit from Dominion. The BBC says that messages between Trump and his friends at Fox were revealed in the lawsuit. They showed that Carlson was rude to Fox staff.
According to National File, Rauchet played a key role in ousting Carlson and getting Hegseth the prime-time spot.