Pete Hegseth’s mother said he abused ‘many’ women in bombshell email

Pete Hegseth’s mother trashed his character in a blistering email shortly after his contentious divorce from his second wife, Samantha, mother of three of his children.

Penelope Hegseth, 70, wrote that President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of defense had mistreated women for years.

“On behalf of all the women (and I know it’s many) you’ve abused in one way or another, I say… get some help and take an honest look at yourself,” she wrote on the 30th. April 2018.

“I have no respect for any man who belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps and uses women for his own power and ego.

“You are that man (and have been for years), and as your mother, it pains and embarrasses me to say it, but it’s the sad, sad truth.”

The amazing email was received by New York Times and published in a report Friday evening.

Hegseth’s mother also condemned his treatment of Samantha during their bitter divorce, writing: “For you to try to label her ‘unstable’ for your own benefit is despicable and abusive. Do you have any sense of decency left in you?”

“She did not ask for or deserve any of what has come to her at your hand.

“Neither did Meredith,” added Penelope Hegseth, referring to her son’s first wife.

Talking with Times on Friday, Penelope Hegseth said she had retracted the allegations in the email and now regrets sending it.

“It’s not true. It’s never been true,” she said. “I know my son. He’s a good father, man.” She said the publication of the contents of the first email was “disgusting.”

Trump communications director Steven Cheung told the Daily Beast: “New York Times is contemptuous of using an out-of-context excerpt of an illegally obtained private email exchange between a mother and her son that does not accurately reflect the entire conversation. In subsequent emails, Ms Hegseth expressed regret for her emotional message and apologised.”

Pete Hegseth, 44, was accused of raping a woman he met at a Republican convention in Monterey, California, in 2017.

He later admitted he paid the woman to protect his hosting job, Fox News host, but vehemently denied her claims, saying the encounter was consensual. He was never charged.

His second wife filed for divorce after it emerged he had been having an affair with Fox News executive Jennifer Rachet. The two have a daughter together and married in 2019 on a Trump golf course.