Democrats say the FBI failed to interview critical witnesses about Pete Hegseth

Senate Democrats said Monday that the FBI’s background check of Pete Hegseth, President Donald J. Trump’s pick to head the Pentagon, left out key details about the main allegations against him, in part because it did not include interviews with critical witnesses.

One missed opportunity occurred when the bureau did not interview one of Mr. Hegseth’s ex-wives before presenting its findings to senators last week, according to people familiar with the bureau’s investigation.

The uproar comes before the hearing of Mr. Hegseth about the confirmation, and just a few days after the officials from the transition team of Mr. Trump was briefed by Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the commission’s top Republican, and Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, its top Democrat, about the FBI’s background checks.

“There are significant gaps and flaws in the report, including the failure to interview some of the key potential witnesses with personal knowledge of the impropriety or abuse,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut and a member of the committee, said in an interview.

As a member of the committee, Mr. Blumenthal was not briefed on the report or given a copy of it, but was informed of its contents by someone who gave him access.

“FBI investigators did not question quite a few women with significant allegations against him,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois and another panel member, said Monday night on MSNBC, adding that some of those women feared for their safety and the safety of their children.

Mr. Hegseth is accused of sexually assaulting a woman in Monterey, Calif., in 2017 in an encounter he insisted was consensual. No charges have been filed. Mr. Hegseth later paid the woman an undisclosed amount of money as part of a confidential settlement agreement.

“My understanding is that some of them would like to be contacted by the FBI investigative team or vets, and they haven’t been spoken to,” Ms. Duckworth added in an interview with MSNBC.

An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment.

Mr. Trump’s transition team ordered an FBI background check on Mr. Hegseth last month after he initially floated the idea of ​​hiring private contractors to vet the president-elect’s Cabinet picks. As clients, presidential transition teams have traditionally been able to set parameters for background checks on cabinet picks and potentially dictate which witnesses will be interviewed and which questions will be asked. The transition team’s instructions to the FBI to investigate Mr. Hegseth are not known.

According to people familiar with the FBI background check, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive document, investigators reached out to Samantha Hegseth, Mr. Hegseth’s other ex-wife. The couple got married in 2010 and divorced in 2018.

FBI investigators had an initial, cursory interview with her on Jan. 8, according to people familiar with the report. Ms. Hegseth then made several attempts to contact the bureau for a more substantive discussion — but her calls were not returned last week, said those familiar with the investigation, who were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

On January 9, the Council was informed that the investigation against Mr. Hegseth completed. Mr. Wicker and Mr. Reed were notified on January 10. Rank-and-file Democrats have demanded to see the full FBI document, but have not been allowed to do so.

Asked why the FBI did not interview Ms. Hegseth last week, Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for Trump’s transition team, referred a reporter to the bureau.

The Hegseths, who share custody of their three children, had a contentious divorce. She worked for Mr. Hegseth in the small non-profit organization he ran while married to his first wife, who filed for divorce, citing adultery.

In 2017, seven years after Pete and Samantha Hegseth were married, Mr. Hegseth, then host of the TV program “Fox & Friends,” had a child with his producer. Ms. Hegseth filed for divorce the following month.

In 2018, before their divorce was finalized, the mother of Mr. Hegseth, Penelope Hegseth, sent her son an email condemning what she described as his abuse of women. Since then, she has dropped criticism of her son and defended him as a changed man who deserves to be confirmed as defense minister.

The committee scheduled a vote on the confirmation of Mr. Hegseth for January 20, the date of the inauguration of Mr. Trump.

A spokesman for Mr. Wicker’s board did not respond to requests for comment late Monday, and a spokesman for Mr. Reed’s board declined to comment.

Devlin Barrett contributed reporting.