{"id":67857,"date":"2016-04-30T16:45:36","date_gmt":"2016-04-30T20:45:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=67857"},"modified":"2016-04-30T10:49:47","modified_gmt":"2016-04-30T14:49:47","slug":"senators-request-meeting-with-defense-secretary-on-military-sexual-assault","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=67857","title":{"rendered":"Senators request meeting with defense secretary on military sexual assault"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Kirsten<\/a>
Kirsten Gillibrand<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In a letter to Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter, U.S. Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Rand Paul (R-KY), Dean Heller (R-NV) and Mazie K. Hirono (D-HI) today requested a meeting to discuss new reports that allege the U.S. Department of Defense deliberately misled members of Congress as they were considering policy to address sexual assault in the military.<\/p>\n

A report compiled by the advocacy organization Protect Our Defenders (POD)<\/a>, and follow-up reporting by the Associated Press<\/a>, found that Department of Defense officials provided inaccurate information in order to affect the policy debate in Congress over sexual assault in the military. The reports found that cases cited by Department of Defense officials were inaccurately characterized, and that relevant information was omitted.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are deeply disturbed by the allegations in the two reports that the Department deliberately misled members as they were debating an issue of policy and oversight,\u201d the Senators wrote in the letter. \u201cWe are sure that you share our concerns and request a meeting with you to discuss these allegations as soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

The full text of the letter is included below:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

April 27, 2016<\/p>\n

The Honorable Ashton B. Carter<\/p>\n

Secretary of Defense<\/p>\n

U.S. Department of Defense<\/p>\n

1400 Defense Pentagon<\/p>\n

Washington, D.C. 20301<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dear Secretary Carter,<\/p>\n

We are writing to express our concerns regarding allegations that the U.S. Department of Defense misled Congress during our recent debates over sexual assault in the military.<\/p>\n

A newly released report by the victims\u2019 advocacy organization Protect Our Defenders and a follow-up investigation by the Associated Press (AP), both attached, maintain that the Department provided us and our colleagues with faulty statistics in order to impact our policy debates over sexual assault in the military<\/p>\n

Specifically at issue is the testimony of Admiral James Winnefeld, Jr., then Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, before the Senate Armed Services Committee as well as further correspondence sent by Admiral Winnefeld to Senators Levin and Gillibrand. Admiral Winnefeld claimed that military commanders were taking sexual assault cases that civilian authorities declined to take and used as examples 93 cases to demonstrate this claim.<\/p>\n

Both Protect Our Defenders and the AP found that these claims were inaccurate and misleading \u2013 that local law enforcement worked with the military to determine who could best handle the cases; that many of the cases were not tried for sexual assault and that there was no evidence that commanders were tougher than civilian or military prosecutors.<\/p>\n

We are deeply disturbed by the allegations in the two reports that the Department deliberately misled members as they were debating an issue of policy and oversight.<\/p>\n

We are sure that you share our concerns and request a meeting with you to discuss these allegations as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

Sincerely,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Kirsten Gillibrand\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Chuck Grassley<\/p>\n

United States Senator \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0United States Senator<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jeanne Shaheen\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Martin Heinrich<\/p>\n

United States Senator \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 United States Senator<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Barbara Boxer\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Richard Blumenthal<\/p>\n

United States Senator \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 United States Senator<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rand Paul\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Dean Heller<\/p>\n

United States Senator \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 United States Senator<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mazie K. Hirono<\/p>\n

United States Senator<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a letter to Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter, U.S. Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Rand Paul (R-KY), Dean Heller (R-NV) and Mazie K. Hirono (D-HI) today requested a meeting to discuss new reports that allege the U.S. Department of Defense […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33903,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}