Pete Hegseth leaves a meeting on Capitol Hill on December 2, 2024, in Washington, D.C.

The more we learn about Pete Hegseth, the more we believe he's a poor choice to lead the Department of Defense.

Last month, this editorial board noted that Mr. Hegseth, a U.S. Army National Guard veteran best known as a Fox News host, has scant management experience, which makes him a terrible fit to oversee a vast bureaucracy of roughly 3 million military and civilian employees. Recent revelations show that a thin resume is far from the greatest problem with Donald Trump's nominee.

We'll start with the news, as reported by The Washington Post and other outlets, that Mr. Hegseth, 44, secretly paid a financial settlement to a woman who in 2017 accused him of raping her. Mr. Hegseth says the sexual encounter was consensual, and he was not charged with a crime after the woman detailed her allegation to the Monterey, Calif., police........

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