WASHINGTON — An FBI background check on Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Defense Department, was broadcast to top members of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Friday night, according to two sources with direct knowledge. of the report, just days before his confirmation hearing on Tuesday.
Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the panel’s chairman, and Sen. Jack Reed, R-I.D., ranking member, are the only senators with the report, the two sources said.
The 25-member committee does not necessarily need to review Hegseth’s background check to proceed with the nomination hearing, but two committee sources familiar with the process said it was “unprecedented” for the report to take so long to reach senior members. of the panel.
Committee Democrats NBC News spoke to have been frustrated by the delay and suggest the FBI report may not be comprehensive, particularly for a Cabinet pick that has been mired in controversy. One person who worked closely with Hegseth in the past and another who was contacted by Congress regarding Hegseth told NBC News that they are concerned that the FBI has not contacted them.
An FBI spokesman declined to comment.
Since Trump announced his intention to nominate Hegseth, the military veteran and former Fox News host has been embroiled in a series of controversies and negative accusations.
“I don’t think I’ll be allowed to see the FBI investigation before the hearing,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., told NBC News on Friday. “I also think it’s probably not exhaustive. … An FBI investigation is not the be-all and end-all, but even that is not what we are allowed to examine.”
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., said the FBI background check should address Hegseth’s “significant personal issues,” but said “the biggest problem I have is that he just doesn’t seem prepared in any way to do this job.” ”.
Kelly, like other Democrats on the Armed Services Committee interviewed by NBC News, said he would prefer to see the report before the hearing, especially after Hegseth’s team told most Democrats he would only be available to meet after of the audience.
Three Democratic aides told NBC News that the response they received from Hegseth’s team was that they would see them on Jan. 15, the day after the hearing was scheduled.
Hegseth’s team reached out to some Democratic committees in the days before Christmas and Hanukkah, but at the time had not filed the necessary paperwork or scheduled a meeting with Reed, the panel’s top Democrat, according to several Democratic aides.
Reed met with Hegseth on Wednesday in his office for less than 25 minutes, and said in a later statement that the meeting “did not alleviate my concerns about Mr. Hegseth’s lack of qualifications and raised more questions than answers.”
A Trump transition official called the complaints “partisan grandstanding designed to slow down the confirmation process at a time when it is incredibly critical that President Trump have his national security team in place from day one.”
“Mr. Hegseth and his team have been proactively reaching out to all SASC Democrats (and indeed all Senate Democrats) for weeks,” the official said. “We even reached out to several SASC Democrats well before Memorial Day. Thanksgiving, and I must note that those offices did not respond or refused to meet with Mr. Hegseth throughout December.”
Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, declined to meet with Hegseth, according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter.
“Senator Hirono has not met with any of the president-elect’s candidates. “He wants to hear from them publicly, officially,” said a spokesperson for Hirono.
According to an aide to a senator who sits on several high-profile committees, Hegseth is the only candidate who has declined an invitation to meet with them. “It’s the art of the jam,” this attendee told NBC News.
But the transition official responded: “Despite a low response rate and multiple communications attacking the candidate before these senators have met with him, Mr. Hegseth is doing everything he can to meet with as many Democratic senators as he can. before and after your election. audience.”
Aside from Reed, Democrats on the panel will have to wait until after the hearing and, in some cases, after Trump’s inauguration, to meet with Hegseth, according to several Democrats who revealed their plans.
“I can’t think of any other nominee for defense secretary who hasn’t made himself available to all members of the jurisdiction committee,” said a longtime Democratic aide on the panel with a high degree of familiarity with the nomination process. confirmation, spanning several administrations.
“And we haven’t had a Secretary of Defense nominee whose people are concerned about FBI background checks in at least two decades. “This is standard,” the assistant added. “I would have been surprised to hear someone ask the question: ‘Do we have [Mark] Esper’s background check? EITHER [Lloyd] Austin? Or Ash Carter?’”
Hegseth’s attorney, Tim Parlatore, told NBC News that it is their understanding that the FBI background check concluded earlier this week. He said the FBI had not given Hegseth’s team anything to review and they did not expect to receive a copy before the hearing.
There has been intense media scrutiny over why Hegseth was forced to step down from leading two military organizations, Vets for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America. A Dec. 1 article in the New Yorker detailed allegations of Hegseth’s repeated intoxication at work events and other inappropriate behavior, as well as financial mismanagement. Hegseth has denied these allegations.
But key leaders who had worked at the organizations said that as of this week and Friday afternoon, the FBI had not contacted them to participate in a background check on Hegseth.
In the case of Vets for Freedom, Republican megadonor Paul Singer, a major financial backer of the group, had ordered a financial audit, a forensic accounting, on the organization in 2009 after it ran out of money under Hegseth’s leadership. , according to a former Vets for Freedom employee. The audit took months, revealed approximately half a million dollars in debts, and copies were provided to, among others, Singer and two Vets for Freedom advisers, political consultant Dan Señor and political commentator Margaret Hoover.
After the audit, Singer asked Brian Wise, head of another group that helps Blue and Gold Star families, Military Families United, to take over Vets for Freedom and incorporate it into his group, the former employee said. Hegseth has not responded publicly to the audit.
There was no immediate response to an email sent to Elliott Investment Management, the firm that Singer founded and of which Señor is a partner. Wise said he had not been contacted by the FBI and declined to answer questions about Hegseth’s nomination.
Senate Armed Services Democrats have expressed concerns about Hegseth’s management of these veterans groups. These Democrats have requested internal reports from these two military groups but have not received them, a Senate aide said.
“Your record of gross mismanagement of the organizations you previously led raises alarm about your ability to manage a department with a budget of nearly $850 billion,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., wrote to Hegseth in a letter this week. week, “which accounts for more than half of the requested discretionary federal spending.”
Still, Sen. Kevin Cramer, R.N.D., who was concerned about Hegseth’s past, specifically his drinking, told NBC News on Thursday that there are no known “no” votes from Republicans on the committee.
“There are certainly some people who haven’t said yes or no,” Cramer added. “But I think it’s going to be okay.”
