North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis told Pete Hegseth’s former sister-in-law Danielle Hegseth that her sworn statement about the new Secretary of Defense’s alcohol and wife abuse would likely convince enough GOP Senators, including himself, to vote against the candidate.
While the signed affidavit did convince Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, Maine’s Susan Collins, and Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell, Tillis himself voted to confirm Hegseth. His vote would have nixed the confirmation.
According to The Wall Street Journal,Tillis conveyed his message to Danielle Hegseth on Jan. 19 in a phone call that two others witnessed. In a statement to the publication, Tillis, who is up for re-election next fall, said Hegseth’s statement “did carry weight, which is why I communicated my concerns to the White House and spent days doing my due diligence and seeing if there were any firsthand corroborating accounts of the sworn statement.”
Tillis says he could not find any firsthand corroboration, despite the sworn statement by Hegseth’s sister-in-law.
Danielle Hegseth said she went public because she had doubts about Hegseth’s competency for the role and “because I have been assured that making this public statement will ensure that certain senators who are still on the fence will vote against Hegseth’s confirmation. But for that assurance,” she added, “I would not subject myself or others referred to in this statement to the public scrutiny this statement is likely to cause.”
Read the statement Tillis put out following his vote for the DUI candidate here.