A woman has alleged that Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, prevented her from leaving his hotel room, took her phone and sexually assaulted her, according to a detailed police report made public Wednesday.

The complainant, whose name has been redacted from the report, later sought a sexual assault examination at a hospital, which led to a nurse reporting the 2017 incident to law enforcement.

Hegseth, who is appointed to lead the military and the nation’s largest federal bureaucracy, has vehemently denied the allegation of sexual assault, describing the sexual encounter with the married woman as consensual. He told police he repeatedly asked for the woman’s consent throughout the interaction and insisted she seemed willing. Video footage cited in the report showed the two leaving a hotel bar earlier that evening with their arms linked, appearing friendly.

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“I’ll keep it very simple, the matter has been fully investigated and I’ve been fully cleared and that’s where I’ll leave it,” Hegseth told reporters on Capitol Hill on Thursday after meeting with several Republican senators.

The former Fox New personality has a history of infidelity, including an extramarital affair with a woman who would become his third wife while he was still married to his second. A verified sexual history can bring additional scrutiny to security clearances that grant access to the military’s most secret secrets and could be viewed as a vulnerability that could be exploited by adversaries.

But as a practical matter, Trump and the executive branch could waive any issues with Hegseth’s background check if he is confirmed to lead the Pentagon.

The sexual assault allegation, which was revealed by local California authorities after Trump nominated Hegseth, has become a potential political liability as he seeks support in the Senate, which vets and approves presidential candidates. Another Trump nominee, Matt Gaetz, who was named US attorney general, withdrew from consideration on Thursday amid allegations that he paid women for sex, had sex with an underage teenager and used illegal drugs .

The alleged incident involving Hegseth occurred in October 2017 during a Republican Women’s Conference in Monterey, California at a Hyatt hotel. The woman told police she had been drinking with Hegseth at the hotel bar and said her memory began to become cloudy. She recalled being in Hegseth’s hotel room, saying she remembered him repeatedly saying “no.”

After intercourse, the woman told Hegseth she would tell her husband — who was staying at the same hotel — that she fell asleep on a couch in someone else’s room. Hegseth told her not to worry about him saying anything, but told authorities he had “shown early signs of remorse.”

Hegseth paid the woman an undisclosed amount of money as part of a nondisclosure agreement in 2020, according to his attorney, Tim Parlatore. who told Military.com that the sex was consensual and that the now former Fox News host was the victim of blackmail.

Military.com reached out to Parlatore about the details in the police report, but did not hear back in time for publication.

Prior to his nomination, Hegseth was best known as the former co-host of “Fox and Friends Weekend” and his other frequent appearances on Fox News. The channel notified Military.com on Monday that Hegseth is no longer employed there. He also served 13 years in National Guardwith several breaks in service and left as a major in 2021.

After the 2017 incident, the woman told police she didn’t remember how she got into Hegseth’s bedroom, only remembering his military tags hanging around his neck and above her head.

She was unable to recall to authorities how much alcohol she consumed, but told a hospital nurse that her drink may have been spiked because her memory was fuzzy. Witnesses told police he had no clear hangover symptoms the next day.

No charges were ever filed against Hegseth, but local police have not said the allegations are false. Meanwhile, some Republicans on Capitol Hill downplayed Thursday’s sexual encounter as Hegseth and Vice President-elect JD Vance toured offices in an attempt to drum up support for the nomination.

“I don’t think there’s any way in the world you can say this was a sexual assault,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said after his meeting with Hegseth. “You can read the report for yourself. If you read it, you can clearly see that there were two people who were flirting with each other. . . . There’s a reason charges weren’t laid.”

Asked if the alleged assault and history of infidelity make Hegseth a security risk, Mullin dismissed the concern.

“Infidelity? He was not married at the time” of the alleged attack, Mullin said.

Court records dispute that claim, however.

Two months before the incident, in August 2017, Hegseth had a daughter with Fox News producer Jennifer Rauchet, according to social networks posts from the pair. A month later, Hegseth’s second wife, Samantha, filed for divorce, according to Minnesota court records. That divorce was not finalized until July 2018, records show.

The incident is also not the first time Hegseth has been accused of being unfaithful.

Hegseth’s first marriage to Meredith Schwarz ended when she filed for divorce in 2008, according to Minnesota court records. Numerous outlets have reported, citing the divorce decree, that the marriage ended due to Hegseth’s infidelity.

None of these things, however, stopped Hegseth’s ascension into Trump’s orbit.

In the years following the sexual assault allegation, Rauchet and Hegseth were married at Trump National Golf Club Colts Neck in New Jersey, and he successfully lobbied then-President Trump to exonerate the two. Army officers accused of murder while serving in Afghanistan and reduce the sentence of Navy SEALs Eddie Gallagher, who has been accused of fatally stabbing a teenage ISIS prisoner.

Hegeseth was also considered to rule Department of Veterans Affairs before Trump’s first term ends.

Still, Hegseth’s nomination this month came as a surprise choice to lead the Pentagon, given his lack of experience in defense policy and his modest level of military experience. He ended his military career with a brief stint in the National Guard in Washington DC, serving as a part-time mid-level official that would not have exposed him to high-level military planning or operations.

He also has long argued against allowing women in military combat roles, which could affect thousands of soldiers if he were to serve as defense secretary, and has questioned whether women in the military make the country safer.

Related: Thousands of women serve in combat roles. Pentagon nominee Hegseth says it shouldn’t.

The story continues