“Our military is in need of a change agent who will challenge the status quo,” Sen. John Curtis, Utah’s newest U.S. senator, said in a statement Wednesday evening.
By Jeff Parrott, The Salt Lake Tribune
Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s embattled nominee to helm the Department of Defense, has the backing of brand new Utah Republican Sen. John Curtis.
Long speculated as a potential GOP holdout, Curtis said Wednesday that he takes the U.S. Senate’s role seriously in vetting presidential nominees and that he’d “spent significant time reviewing President Trump’s nominees, including his Defense Secretary pick Pete Hegseth.”
“While there are actions from his past that give me pause,” the new senator said, “I carefully weighed these concerns against his qualifications, leadership style, and commitment to bolstering the world’s most respected military. I am confident Mr. Hegseth shares my vision of ensuring our armed services are prepared to meet the evolving challenges of the 21st century.”
Whether Hegseth will be confirmed by the narrowly divided Senate has been in question since Trump announced the nomination of the U.S. Army veteran and Fox News host to lead the Pentagon in November.
Hegseth has been accused of sexual assault, although he denies the allegations. Over the last two months, many GOP senators have indicated that allegation, along with other issues raised about Hegseth — including his reported alcohol use and mismanagement of funds at a nonprofit serving veterans, according to The New Yorker — will not stop them from voting to confirm him. Among them is the senior member of Utah’s federal delegation, Sen. Mike Lee.
For more on the Pete Hegseth confirmation hearing, read this story at sltrib.com.
1 comment
Charles Jacques
I moved to Utah four years ago because I was finally fed up with the deepening blueness of my home state in New England and I thought Utah and it’s deep red political identity would be a place that made more sense to me and my family. Disappointingly, The evolution of the Republican Party in the last four years, not just in Utah but nationally as well, has astounded me. Pete Hegseth’s nomination and almost certain confirmation is just the latest evidence of that.
The Republican Party that I supported – both with my votes and financial contributions – always made a strong point about how they stood for family values. But with this nomination, we are looking at the elevation of a man – who by his own admission – is as serial adulterer to one of the most powerful jobs on the planet. By his own admission, he had relations with a married woman and went to church a few days later like nothing had happened. He keeps insisting we HAVE to forgive him because Jesus has, seemingly forgetting that Christ’s forgiveness of sins was always made with the admonition to go your way and sin no more….
Hegseth says that encounter was “consensual” and continues to say that, despite the fact that the victim has said and has always said that it was not. He says “I was completely cleared” although he knows even as he says that that this is a huge exaggeration of the facts. NOT getting arrested is not the same as being completely cleared. I am particularly disappointed by Mike Lee’s hardcore (no pun intended) support for Hegseth. Lee is a former prosecutor. As a former research paralegal in a criminal law practice, I know if the evidence against Hegseth that we KNOW about had come across Lee’s desk as a prosecutor, he would unquestionably have gone ahead with a prosecution. As a US senator and powerful Republican, I suspect that Lee has access to an even deeper level of evidence which makes his unquestioned support all the more stunning. When I moved to Utah, I was happy to vote for Lee’s Re-Election. Now I’m ashamed of having done so. Rather than being a staunch defender of virtue and right, Lee has thrown in with secret combinations determined to undermine truth and justice.
Sadly, he is hardly alone. Senator Joni Ernst, who made a name for herself revealing that she was a sexual assault survivor and fighting against sexual abuse of women service persons, has abandoned all decency and has announced she will vote to confirm this dangerous, hypocritical liar to the office of Secretary of Defense, in spite of the evidence. Her hypocrisy is so deep that she even refused to meet with Hegseth’s victim, thereby forfeiting whatever honor and moral high ground she has earned by her previous staunch defense of victims.
John Curtis had the courage to say “No” to Matt Gaetz for Attorney general, which turned out to be well called, as subsequent revelations have made it clear that he was unquestionably guilty of sexually predatory behavior with at least two underage girls. That gave me and other decent folks cause to believe he would also be a hold out on Hegseth, consistent with his promise to stand for “Utah Pioneer Values”, but alas it appears he, too, has been seduced (no pun intended) to throw in with the folks the scriptures would characterize as unrighteousness judges for personal political gain.
To be clear, I voted for Donald Trump, with enormous reservations but certain he had to be a better choice than the only other viable alternative.As an honorably discharged veteran I agree with Senator Curtis that the DOD needs a change agent who will challenge the status quo. America is the greatest country on earth and it deserves the very best leaders. The Republican Party and its conservatives contain many folks with the experience and the commitment to be that change agent who DON’T bring the baggage of rape, drunkenness and managerial incompetence that hangs like an albatross around the neck of Secretary-Designate Hegseth. Yet, it seems Republicans are intent on giving us someone who buy no stretch of the imagination can be classified as the best of leaders.
It’s sad really. Donald Trump won the presidency with less than half of the popular vote and Republicans have the thinnest governing margin in the congress in modern American history. This Hubris that they have some sort of mandate to ride roughshod over decency in pursuit of their agenda can and likely will reverse that advantage in the next round of elections.
An they will have, among others, Pete Hegseth to blame.