Senate Republicans worry that the affirmation hearings for secretary of protection nominee Pete Hegseth will probably be a repeat of Supreme Court docket Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s heated 2018 hearings.

Each Kavanaugh and Hegseth have been accused of sexual misconduct and have rejected the allegations. Hegseth’s plan to launch his accuser from a nondisclosure settlement is setting up the listening to to be stuffed with pressure and fervor from each Democrats and Republicans.

Hegseth is ready to push forward together with his nomination regardless of warnings from Senate Republicans that he’s prone to face a frenzy of uncomfortable questions in regards to the sexual misconduct allegations and the claims in opposition to him of extreme ingesting and monetary mismanagement.

“I advised him it’s going to be a depressing expertise, type of like Brett Kavanaugh’s affirmation listening to,” stated Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn, in response to The Hill.

In 2018, dozens of protesters had been detained by Capitol Police within the Senate workplace buildings, resulting in senators being escorted by police as they went across the Capitol advanced. Kavanaugh additionally grew to become famously animated as he mentioned the allegations of sexual assault and was questioned earlier than he was ultimately appointed to the Supreme Court docket.

Whereas Cornyn stated senators stay “open” to confirming Hegseth, he added that “They need the method to proceed and we’ll reply to any new info that they get.”

“The whole lot goes to be elevated. I believe it’s going to be Kavanaugh on steroids,” stated North Carolina Republican Senator Thom Tillis.

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Senators famous that the ambiance is determined by whether or not Hegseth’s accuser can be prepared to look earlier than the Senate Armed Companies Committee. In 2018, Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey-Ford appeared earlier than Congress to element sexual misconduct allegations in opposition to Kavanaugh after they had been teenagers.

Senators Joni Ernst of Iowa and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina have each stated that they’d be unwilling to vote in opposition to Hegseth based mostly on nameless allegations.

An advisor to Hegseth stated the 44-year-old is prepared to debate any and all allegations in opposition to him in conferences with senators, in response to The Hill.

“Mr. Hegseth has assured the Senators with whom he’s assembly that they may be capable to fulfill their advise and consent duties in relation to this and all matters,” stated the advisor.

The following Senate Republican chief, John Thune of South Dakota, stated it is going to be the Armed Companies Committee’s resolution in the event that they need to name on the accuser to testify.

“That’s clearly a call the committee, he, and — they’re all going to need to make that,” he stated of the panel and Hegseth.

“As a common rule, I believe it’s necessary that hearings be carried out within the mild of day with full transparency,” he added.

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Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the subsequent chair of the Armed Companies Committee, stated he doesn’t know if the accuser will testify.

“I assume it is determined by what she has to say,” he stated.

Rutgers College political science professor Ross Baker stated the Democrats are prone to learn out essentially the most controversial elements of the 2017 police report of the sexual misconduct allegation in opposition to Hegseth.

“We should assume that it’ll comprise some fairly graphic info, and presumably it will be introduced by the Democrats on the listening to within the Armed Companies Committee,” he stated, in response to The Hill.

The accuser has claimed that Hegseth took her cellphone and stopped her from leaving his lodge room throughout a convention in Monterey, California. Hegseth has stated that the encounter was consensual and that he ensured that she was “snug with what was occurring.”