Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Defense Secretary, received an emotional email from his mother in 2018 during his contentious divorce, accusing him of mistreating his ex-wife, according to an email obtained by Breitbart News. In a follow-up email sent on May 1, 2018, Penelope Hegseth apologized for her earlier message, acknowledging that it was written out of emotion and frustration. She expressed regret, saying she should have handled the situation better.
She explained that the divorce had been difficult and frustrating for her, leading to feelings of desperation. Additionally, she acknowledged his love for the children he shares with his ex-wife and his desire to be involved in their lives, expressing her support for that. The follow-up email had a completely different tone compared to the one she had sent the evening before, which the New York Times published on Friday without her consent.
In the initial email sent on April 30, 2018, she criticized her son for his treatment of his ex-wife Samantha, the mother of three of her grandchildren, to whom Hegseth was married from 2010 to 2017. She forwarded that email to Samantha, and it somehow made its way to the Times. When Hegseth’s mother was informed by The New York Times of their intent to publish her email, she revealed in a phone interview that she had immediately sent her son a follow-up message apologizing for her previous remarks.
She explained to the Times that she had sent the original email “in anger, with emotion” during a particularly challenging period of her son’s divorce from his ex-wife. Additionally, she defended her son in her conversation with the Times, disavowing the negative comments she had made about his character and his treatment of women in the initial email, Breitbart reported. Penelope told the paper, “It is not true. It has never been true,” adding, “I know my son. He is a good father, husband.” She also called publishing the email’s contents “disgusting.”
Nonetheless, LaFraniere proceeded with the story, actively promoting it on her X account and informing readers that it was available as a “gift” or free article rather than being behind a paywall. LaFraniere—who was part of the Times’s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Russia collusion hoax—was reportedly personally biased against Hegseth, according to a New York Times source who spoke with Breitbart. The source said, “She said that Pete Hegseth can’t be SECDEF and that she’s going to see to it. I kind of looked at her like she was crazy and wondered how she was going to see to it, but now I guess I don’t have to wonder anymore.”
Author and combat veteran Sean Parnell blasted LaFraniere for publishing the original email, calling it “despicably low” and “sickening.” He wrote on X: “The New York Times is publishing a 6 year old private email between a mother & her son. This is despicably low on so many levels. Families have issues. All the time. To make those issues public for the sole purpose of tanking a nomination is evil. Period. Pete has children. They will read this. Their friends will read it. It is irresponsible as hell to even publish such a thing. Democrats don’t have to deal with this BS. It’s sickening.”
