Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sent a letter to President-elect Trump’s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday demanding that his wife sell thousands of dollars worth of stock in defense companies, calling it a conflict. Of interest.
Warren said Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer Rauchet, owns stock in top defense contractors such as Northrop Grumman Corp., Lockheed Martin Corp., Honeywell International, IBM and Microsoft, as well as smaller contractors and larger companies such as Oracle, Google and Thermo Fisher. He said he found out the truth. Scientific, T-Mobile, Mastercard, Danaher Corp., Pepsi and others.
In the letter, obtained exclusively by The Hill, Warren pointed out that Pentagon policy prohibits certain stock investments for appointed roles.
According to the Office of Government Ethics, the threshold for a sale is if it exceeds $15,000.
Rauchet owns $15,000 in the largest defense companies and more than $15,000 in other companies such as Google, Oracle and T-Mobile, Warren said. Warren said Hegseth’s family should divest from both investments.
“These holdings reasonably raise doubts about whether decisions can be made at least in part to protect households’ stock holdings rather than purely for the benefit of the American people,” she wrote. “The risk of conflict is not theoretical. Some of these contractors have settled claims that they overcharged the Department of Defense by millions of dollars.”
The Hill has reached out to the Trump transition team for comment.
Hegseth, an Army National Guard veteran and former Fox News personality, is one of Trump’s most controversial figures and faces strong opposition from Democrats, including Warren. But after Tuesday’s Senate confirmation hearing, Hegseth appears to have the Republican votes needed for confirmation, and a vote could come next Wednesday or Thursday.
Hegseth has fought allegations of financial mismanagement of two veterans organizations he once led, sexual assault allegations in 2017 and allegations of excessive drinking in the workplace. Hegseth has denied all charges against him.
At Tuesday’s hearing, Warren and other Democrats also criticized him for his inexperience, infidelity and extreme views he has espoused in the past, such as banning women from combat roles. Hegseth said Tuesday she is focused on raising standards, not banning women from fighting.
Hegseth this week said he has no conflicts of interest and is an “agent of change,” but Warren appears to be forcing him to meet that standard.
In Friday’s letter, Warren said Hegseth must promise not to work for a defense contractor for 10 years after leaving the Pentagon if he gets the job, noting that this is a good ethical standard and one set forth by outgoing Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. He said he would support it.
The senator added that Hegseth’s 2024 book, “War on Warriors,” would be consistent with “the same standards he urged for the generals he will oversee.”
Warren also asked Hegseth to recuse herself from “certain issues” related to Fox News and other former employers and to refrain from engaging in lobbying activities after leaving the Pentagon for four years.
“There is a rampant revolving door of former government leaders lobbying the agencies they once led, but government relations remain fresh and are undermining Americans’ trust in the federal government,” the senators wrote.
“We urge you to voluntarily commit to measures to mitigate conflicts of interest to assure the American people that their interests will be served by DoD,” she added.
