The Senate of Of .u. He confirmed on Friday the expressor of the Fox News chain and a member of the National Guard of the Army Pete Hegseth As the new Secretary of Defense, a confirmation achieved thanks to the aiming vote of the vice president JD Vance.
After the vote ended up tied, with 50 votes in favor and 50 against, the session in the plenary of the upper house was suspended momentary so that the US vice president goes to the room to break the equality with his favorable vote.
In addition to the Democratic bench, the Republican senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski voted against this nomination, who had already advanced their decision, as well as the veteran Mitch McConnell who was leader of the upper house.
Hegesh thus becomes the new head of the Defense portfolio despite the controversy that raised his nomination by the US president, Donald Trump splashed even by accusations of sexual abuse.
This week, an ex -owned offered a sworn statement in the Congress in which he accused Hegesh of having been “abusive” With his second wife, Samantha Hegseth, and having been “Intoxicated” in private and public.
The now Secretary of Defense, who will be the main manager of 1.3 million military personnel in service, rejected those accusations, as well as other previous ones related to cases of sexual abuse, which led a few Republicans to vote against.
Republican senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski and had confirmed that they would oppose their confirmation, a decision that left Trump himself surprised, as journalists confessed this Friday at the White House.
Hegseth said that all those accusations, which led the Democrats to ask for a new nominated, constituted a political persecution.
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“Why do you want to destroy me? Because I am an agent of change and a threat to them, because Donald Trump was willing to choose me to empower me and take the Department of Defense back to what it really should be, which is the fight against war ”he pointed out weeks ago during an audience in the upper house.
Hegesh, who spent a year for the Naval Base of Guantanamo, in which imprisoned for the attacks of September 11, 2001, admitted in that audience that he is an atypical candidate but did not see him as an obstacle.
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At today’s audience, the Democratic Senator Patty MurrayVice President of the Appropriation Committee, highlighted other criticisms that Hegesh has faced, such as the mishandling of organizations in favor of veterans who ended up in bankruptcy.
“I do not see how to bring bankrupt Of dollars, he said, in allusion to the Pentagon Budget.
In the event that the Senate had voted against this nomination, Hegseth had become the first nominated for the secretary of Defense to be rejected since 1989, when John Tower nominated by President George Hw Bush, he fell short by six votes.