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House Republican Says They Were Told ‘In Conference’ Hegseth Accusations ‘Were Anonymous’

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A key Republican who sits on the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees is defending Donald Trump’s embattled nomination of former Fox News host Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense amid a flurry of allegations of sexual assault, sexual harassment, on-the-job use of alcohol and “aggressive drunkenness,” mistreatment of women — an accusation by his own mother — an affinity for Christian nationalism, and financial mismanagement of two veterans’ charities.

U.S. Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA), who has an extensive résumé in the U.S. Armed Forces and is a medical doctor, says he and his Republican colleagues on Capitol Hill were “told” that the allegations against Hegseth were “anonymous,” that Hegseth himself does not know who made the allegations, and that Hegseth is “saying to us … ‘it’s an empty allegation of an anonymous tip.’ ”

But Hegseth has admitted to the sexual encounter, although he has “maintained that their encounter was consensual, according to a statement from his lawyer,” The Washington Post has reported. In addition to the statement from his attorney, The Post also cites “other documents” it has obtained.

The sexual assault allegation involves a married woman who was attending a Republican conference with her husband and two children in 2017. She has accused Hegseth of sexually assaulting her. She reportedly had no memory of how she got to his room, where, she alleged, he prevented her from leaving.

READ MORE: Trump’s Guilfoyle Nomination Surfaces Allegations Old and New

“Her next memory was when she was on the bed or couch and ‘Hegseth was over her,’ barechested, his dog tags ‘hovering over her face,’ the [police] report said,” according to The Independent. “After ejaculating on her stomach, Hegseth ‘threw a towel at her and asked her ‘are you ok?’ ‘ the police report said.”

Hegseth denies the assault allegations but did come to a financial settlement with her, which required her to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

“A woman told police that she was sexually assaulted in 2017 by Pete Hegseth after he took her phone, blocked the door to a California hotel room and refused to let her leave, according to a detailed investigative report made public,” The Guardian reported last month. “The 22-page police report was released in response to a public records request and offers the first detailed account of what the woman alleged to have transpired – one that is at odds with Hegseth’s version of events. The report cited police interviews with the alleged victim, a nurse who treated her, a hotel staffer, another woman at the event and Hegseth.”

The details appear to be in conflict with the narrative the Trump campaign and Trump’s and Hegseth’s allies have claimed.

“A spokesperson for the Trump transition said … that the ‘report corroborates what Mr Hegseth’s attorneys have said all along: the incident was fully investigated and no charges were filed because police found the allegations to be false,'” The Guardian reported, before disputing that claim.

“The report does not say that police found the allegations were false. Police recommended the case report be forwarded to the Monterey county district attorney’s office for review.”

The Guardian also explained that a nurse, and not the alleged victim, had contacted police.

READ MORE: ‘Pay-to-Play’: Trump Offers ‘Fully Expedited’ Approvals for $1 Billion Investments

“Investigators were first alerted to the alleged assault, the report said, by a nurse who called them after a patient requested a sexual assault exam. The patient told medical personnel she believed she was assaulted five days earlier but could not remember much about what had happened. She reported something may have been slipped into her drink before ending up in the hotel room where she said the assault occurred.”

USA Today reported last month that “Hegseth’s statement to police directly conflicts with a 2017 witness account − and with recent statements by Hegseth’s attorney, who said he was visibly intoxicated on the night in question and that his alleged victim was ‘the aggressor in the encounter.'”

But on Wednesday, Congressman McCormick told C-SPAN the allegations against Hegseth were “anonymous tips.”

Hegseth, McCormick said, has done “a really good job of showing up against those accusations, which are anonymous, which nobody at Fox will say anything.”

“They’re like, ‘I don’t know what he’s talking — I don’t know what they’re talking about when they they talk about these anonymous complaints.’ He doesn’t know what’s talking about. His wife doesn’t know what’s going on.”

“We’re all, they’re all kind of like, ‘just show me who it is, and and let’s address it, because, I don’t know who it is,'” McCormick said.

“Okay,” the C-SPAN host responded, “but he paid a settlement, so he does know who it is.”

“No,” McCormick insisted, “he didn’t know who it is, and and he saying to us, ‘it’s an empty, it’s an empty allegation of an anonymous tip.’ That’s that’s not the same thing. And and so that’s that’s why I heard the same thing as you, and I had my concerns. But that’s not what we were told in conference. We were told, ‘no, these are anonymous tips. We don’t know where they came from.'”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Swarm of MAGA Attacks’ Making Hegseth Confirmation Seem More Likely: Report

Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license

 

 

 

 

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Five of the Wildest Things Trump Said at His Black History Month Celebration

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February 18, 2026

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A jovial President Donald Trump hosted a Black History Month celebration on Wednesday, ad-libbing many remarks that drew online criticism.

‘He’s Not a Racist. He’s My Friend’

“Talk about a piece of work, but he could fight, couldn’t he, huh?” Trump said. “Mike Tyson, boy, I tell you, Mike has been loyal to me. Whenever they come out, they say, ‘Trump’s a racist.’ You know, it’s like a saber. ‘Trump’s a racist.’ Mike Tyson goes, ‘He’s not a racist. He’s my friend.’ He’s been there from the beginning. Good times and bad. But Mike Tyson’s a great guy, and he was so loyal, always been loyal.”

Trump went on to mention his “great friend,” former NFL player Lawrence Taylor, “the greatest defensive player, probably, in the history of football, he’s a great friend of mine.”

Historically Black Colleges and Universities

Trump called Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon “Harmeet Diller,” then asked her about suing “extremely discriminatory” Harvard University. “You keep suing them, the h — — with them,” he said, to laughter.

“I like the Historically Black Colleges and Universities, which I saved,” he claimed — crediting himself for signing bipartisan legislation that secured funding for them in 2019. “They had no funding,” he said.

“We took care of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and it was a great thing to do,” he added.

‘Sometimes, We Have to Force Ourselves Upon Them’

Apparently referring to deploying federal forces into U.S. cities, Trump told the audience, “We’re doing it, in a lot of cities. Sometimes we have to force ourselves upon them because they’re so bad. And I don’t even think they know what’s happening to their cities and their towns.”

Confusion between The Bahamas and Bermuda

Speaking of former football great and failed Republican senatorial candidate Herschel Walker, whom Trump endorsed, the president said, “Herschel Walker — speaking about loyal — how good a football player was Herschel? Herschel Walker, now he’s Ambassador to The Bahamas — I don’t know, Bahamas, Bermuda, is he Bahamas? Whatever. It’s a nice place.”

Nicki Minaj

“Jazz, the blues, from rock and roll to rap, Black artists like Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters — How about Nicki Minaj? Do we love Nicki Minaj? Right? I love Nicki Minaj,” Trump said.

“She was here a couple of weeks ago. So beautiful. Her skin’s so beautiful. I said, ‘Nikki, you’re so pure.’ Her nails, her nails, they’re, like, that long.”

“I said, I said, ‘Nicki, are they real?’ And she said — she didn’t want to get into that.”

“But she was so beautiful and so great, and she. And she gets it, you know, more importantly, frankly, she gets it.”

 

Image via Reuters

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‘You’re Kidding Right?’: WH Press Secretary Stunned Over ‘Falsely Called Racist’ Question

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4 hours ago

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February 18, 2026

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White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt appeared stunned when a reporter asked her for examples of President Donald Trump falsely being called a racist.

The president this week used his statement on the death of Reverend Jesse Jackson to argue that he is not a racist.

“Despite the fact that I am falsely and consistently called a Racist by the Scoundrels and Lunatics on the Radical Left, Democrats ALL, it was always my pleasure to help Jesse along the way,” he wrote.

On Wednesday, a reporter asked, “Where or when does the president believe he’s been falsely called racist?”

Leavitt replied, “You’re kidding, right?”

READ MORE: Trump’s Wild 24 Hour Truth Social Frenzy

“I will pull you plethora of examples,” she said, vowing to get her team “going through the internet of radical Democrats throughout the years … who have accused this president falsely of being a racist, and I’m sure there’s many people in this room and on network television, across the country, who have accused him of the same.”

“In fact, I know that because I’ve seen it with my own eyes,” she said, before noting that Trump is hosting a Black History Month celebration later on Wednesday.

Trump, she said, will “talk about how his policies are advancing opportunity and prosperity for all Americans through record tax cuts, through the Trump accounts that all Americans can access regardless of race.”

“These are a great thing,” she continued, before noting that the president “has also awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in additional funding to strengthen educational outcomes at historically Black colleges and universities, across the country.”

READ MORE: ‘Gaslight America’: Marjorie Taylor Greene Blasts Trump Ahead of His Trip to Georgia

She also said that Trump is “protecting the hard-earned benefits of the 2.4 million Black veterans who honorably served in our nation’s armed forces by reducing the Black backlog of veterans waiting for their VA benefits, and for their home loans through the Department of Veterans Affairs.”

“So, there is a lot this president has done for all Americans, regardless of race, and he has, absolutely, been falsely called and smeared as a racist, and I’m happy to provide you those receipts,” she added.

READ MORE: ‘Republicans Have to Lose’: Far Right Extremist Leader Puts Trump on Notice

 

Image via Reuters 

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‘Gaslight America’: Marjorie Taylor Greene Blasts Trump Ahead of His Trip to Georgia

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6 hours ago

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February 18, 2026

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Former Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is sharply criticizing President Donald Trump ahead of his Thursday trip to her former district, where he made — and then apparently forgot — an endorsement in the race to fill her old House seat.

“Well, we have a lot of people that want to take Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Greene’s place,” Trump said on Monday, as The Daily Beast reported. “Many, many candidates, and I have to choose one.”

Greene ignored Trump’s gaffe, but hit him, his administration, and her former Republican colleagues head-on in a post on X where she accused them all of trying to gaslight the American people.

“If you had put America FIRST from the start, instead of your rich donor class and foreign policy, you wouldn’t have to strategize on how to gaslight Americans,” wrote Greene, a former top Trump ally.

READ MORE: Trump’s Wild 24 Hour Truth Social Frenzy

“If you had not called the Epstein files a hoax and treated the Epstein survivors (rape and trafficking victims) like they didn’t exist and if you would release all the files and put your rich powerful friends in prison then Americans might actually listen to your ‘messaging,'” she charged.

Mocking them all as on the “struggle bus,” Greene explained the situation her former constituents now face.

“Approximately 75,000 households in my former district had their health insurance double or more on January 1st of this year because the ACA tax credits expired and Republicans have absolutely failed to fix our health insurance system that was destroyed by Obamacare,” she said.

Republicans have blocked Democrats’ efforts — including a federal government shutdown over the expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies — to prevent the health care premiums crisis.

Greene said that hundreds of thousands of people in her former district saw their health insurance premiums double last month.

“Many dropped their policies and no longer have health insurance,” she wrote. “And that’s on top of EVERYONE ELSE who complains DAILY about the absurdly high cost of health insurance!!!”

She said the billionaires running the White House, the Trump administration, and Congress aren’t affected by the high health insurance premiums, noting that all of them have “very nice affordable government health insurance plans.”

READ MORE: ‘Republicans Have to Lose’: Far Right Extremist Leader Puts Trump on Notice

“I’m talking about younger healthier people and families not on meds who can’t afford to pay $1500 to more than $2000 per month just for their monthly health insurance premiums,” she wrote, “not including $7-10,000 for a deductible before their ridiculously expensive health insurance policy kicks in.”

Greene also took a shot at House Speaker Mike Johnson, who, she said, “claimed he had the Republican plan during the 8 week shutdown in the fall, then carried on and has done nothing proving he lied once again.”

She also blasted Trump’s “messaging” efforts.

“Trump RX doesn’t fix this so that’s not your messaging answer,” she wrote. “A Truth Social Post or Trump video isn’t fixing this either.”

“Messaging won’t fix this,” she added.

Greene then moved on to foreign policy, warning Trump not to go to war with Iran. She also urged him to release the Epstein files, and told him to “stop the bullying, harassment, and name calling.”

“It’s immature, childish, and turning so many people away. Real leaders don’t act this way and it’s a horrible example set on the world’s stage. This isn’t the behavior we want to teach our children.”

“Deliver real results for the regular American people because respect is earned not given,” she said.

READ MORE: ‘Insulting’: Fox News Panel Implodes as Host Clashes With Liberal Guest Over Voter ID

 

Image via Shutterstock

 

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