Some of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's former colleagues at Fox News bristled at the mention of the Pentagon chief's alcoholism when Democratic lawmakers brought it up in relation to his sharing of highly sensitive information on an unsecured messaging app.
On Wednesday, the Daily Beast reported that Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) questioned whether Hegseth's decision to accidentally leak the details of an airstrike on Houthi rebels in Yemen was in any way influenced by alcohol consumption. The Defense Secretary's confirmation battle in the Senate earlier this year was especially fraught after some of his former coworkers told NBC News that Hegseth frequently showed up to work hung over and reeking of alcohol during his previous job as a part-time weekend host on Fox & Friends.
"To your knowledge, do you know whether Pete Hegseth had been drinking before he leaked classified information?" Gomez asked Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe during a hearing earlier this week.
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“You know, no, I’m going to answer that,” Ratcliffe said. “I think that’s an offensive line of questioning. The answer is no.”
Fox News hosts Emily Compagno and Lawrence Jones agreed with Ratcliffe's point, and called Gomez's question "nuts" and "disgraceful."
“There has been a theme today as we’ve talked about decorum and the frankly embarrassing behavior exhibited by some sitting congresspeople,” Compagno said. “That right there is another example. I find it offensive.”
Some of the Defense Secretary's former colleagues at a veterans' advocacy nonprofit organization he led told the New Yorker that he was once dragged out of the Sheraton Hotel & Suites bar in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio in 2015 for being too intoxicated, even once allegedly chanting "kill all Muslims!" The previous year he allegedly brought female staffers to a strip club in Louisiana, where he reportedly got drunk and attempted to dance with strippers onstage. Hegseth has publicly denied ever having a drinking problem, but said he sometimes drank to "deal with the demons you see on the battlefield." He promised to stop drinking if the Senate confirmed him to lead the U.S. military.
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