CNN Reporter Calls BS On Trump Pick Hegseth: Police ‘Did Not Say’ Sexual Assault Allegations Were ‘False’

CNN correspondent Sara Murray called BS on Trump would-be Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s reaction, via his attorney, to a police report, noting that police did not state the sexual assault allegations were false.

Hegseth is among a raft of cabinet picks facing tough confirmations, and who aren’t being subjected to the customary FBI checks, instead being vetted by private firms. Over the weekend, Hegseth’s attorney dropped the bomb that there was a confidential settlement with a woman who accused the former Fox News host of sexual assault.

Mediaite obtained a copy of the police report from that incident, and in a statement to Mediaite, Hegseth attorney Tim Parlatore claimed “police found the allegations to be false.”

On Thursday morning’s edition of CNN News Central, Murray went over the gory details of that report, and refuted Parlatore’s claim:

KATE BOLDUAN: Sara Murray has much more from this police report as you were able to obtain this police report. Sara, what does it say?

SARA MURRAY: Yeah, Kate, it really lays out these competing narratives of what went on this night in October of 2017 in California surrounding a Republican women’s conference.

So I want to get to the woman’s account first. She’s not named in this report. She’s referred to as Jane Doe. You know, she says in the report that Hegseth was giving off a creeper vibe around the conference.

You know, she says that she ended up in a hotel room that was unfamiliar to her and says Hegseth allegedly took her phone from her hands. He went on to block the door with his body, she alleges, and she went on to say she remember saying “no” a lot.

Now, there are conflicting accounts about what led up to this moment. She says that there were a lot of parts she couldn’t remember and someone may have slipped something into her drink.

But there are other witnesses that investigators talked to who said the woman did not seem to be inebriated. She seemed to be in control. There are also conflicting accounts of how she encountered Hegseth out in public at a bar at the hotel where other conference attendees were.

One person said she showed up to be a crotch-blocker because Hegseth was hitting on another woman. Another conference attendee said she and another woman appeared to be flirting with Hegseth.

At any rate, a couple of days after this incident in the hotel room, Jane Doe does go to the hospital. She has a rape kit exam and the nurse then reports this to authorities.

Now, this is a very different version of events than what Hegseth provides when investigators contact him. He describes this as a completely consensual incident of sexual intercourse. He says there was always conversation and always consensual conduct.

He said that she showed up in his hotel room. He thought it was a little odd that she stayed there. But this sort of began this intimate interaction with them. Now, they had a conversation because Jane Doe is married and she apparently tells Hegseth, again, according to his account, that she’s just going to tell her husband that she had fallen asleep on a couch in someone else’s room.

And he went on to tell investigators that she showed early signs of regret, although he didn’t say what that was.

Now, as you pointed out, Hegseth has not been charged with a crime in any of this. I talked to his attorney last night, Timothy Parelatore, who said “This police report confirms what I’ve said all along, that the incident was fully investigated and police found the allegations to be false, which is why no charges were filed.”.

Now, we have to note that the police report does not say that they found all charges to be false. There were no charges filed in this case. And we don’t have an answer for why the district attorney decided not to proceed with charges.

There is additional evidence surrounding this case, including surveillance footage that has not been made publicly available. And authorities have cited state law, saying they’re not going to release it.

And the same is true for a memo that the D.A. office wrote that may give us a better indication of why charges were not brought.

We should also note that CNN did encounter this woman, contacted the woman known here as Jane Doe last week. She declined to comment to CNN. But when our team showed up, she broke down in tears, Kate.

Watch above via CNN News Central.