Warren pushes for Hegseth's wife to divest from defense company stocks

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sent a letter Friday to President-elect Trump's Defense secretary pick, Pete Hegseth, asking for his wife to divest from thousands of dollars worth of stock she holds in defense company stocks, calling it a conflict of interest.

Warren said she found Hegseth's wife, Jennifer Rauchet, holds stock in top defense contractors like Northrop Grumman Corp., Lockheed Martin Corp., Honeywell International, IBM, and Microsoft, along with smaller contractors and also large companies like Oracle, Google, Thermo Fisher Scientific, T-Mobile, Mastercard, Danaher Corp., and Pepsi.

In the letter, obtained exclusively by The Hill, Warren noted Defense Department policy prohibits certain stock investments for appointed roles.

The threshold for divestment is when it exceeds $15,000, according to the Office of Government Ethics.

Rauchet owns $15,000 in the largest defense contractors and more than $15,000 in other companies like Google, Oracle and T-Mobile, according to Warren, who said Hegseth's household should divest from both investments.

"These holdings reasonably raise doubts about whether you may be making decisions at least in part to protect your household’s stock holdings, rather than purely in the interest of the American people," she wrote. "The risk of a conflict is not theoretical; some of these contractors have settled allegations that they overbilled DoD to the tune of 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 picks and is deeply opposed by Democrats, including Warren. But after his Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday, Hegseth appears to have the GOP votes needed to be confirmed, and a vote could come Wednesday or Thursday next week.

Hegseth has battled accusations of financial mismanagement at two veterans groups he once led, a 2017 sexual assault allegation and accusations of heavy drinking on the job. Hegseth has denied all the charges against him.

Warren and other Democrats at the Tuesday hearing also hammered him on inexperience, infidelity and what they consider extreme views he has espoused in the past, like banning women from combat roles. Hegseth said Tuesday he is focused not on banning women from combat but on raising standards.

Hegseth this week pitched himself as a "change agent" with no conflicts of interest, but Warren appears to be pushing him to meet that standard.

In the Friday letter, Warren said Hegseth must commit to not working for a defense contractor for 10 years after leaving the Pentagon if he's confirmed for the job, pointing to it as a good standard of ethics and one that outgoing Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has said he will uphold.

The senator added that it would align with the "same standard you have urged for the generals you would supervise" in Hegseth's 2024 book "War on Warriors."

Warren also requested Hegseth recuse himself from any "particular matters" involving Fox News and other former employers and not to engage in lobbying efforts after leaving the Pentagon for four years.

The senator wrote the "rampant revolving door of former government leaders lobbying the agencies they once led, while their government relationships remain fresh, erodes Americans’ faith in the federal government."

"I urge you to voluntarily commit to steps to mitigate your conflicts of interest to assure the American people that you will serve at DoD in their interest," she added.

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