The Pentagon may have misled Congress in order to block reforms to the military justice system for victims of sexual assault, according to a report released Monday by an advocacy group.
Protect Our Defenders, which advocates for sexual assault victims in the military, investigated the military’s claims in 2013 that in some cases civilian lawyers refused to prosecute reported assaults, but military commanders insisted that they be referred to a military court.
The group examined 93 cases the Pentagon claimed proved that commanders were more aggressive than civilian prosecutors in getting justice for victims of sexual assault. Of those, the investigation found “no evidence that any case was prosecuted at the ‘insistence’ of a commander,” a summary of the report said.
“Clearly someone knowingly misrepresented this information to Congress,” said retired Col. Don Christensen, a former Air Force chief prosecutor and president of Protect Our Defenders.
In some cases, the military tried the case because it asked that the case be turned over to its jurisdiction, not because civilian prosecutors refused to move forward, Christensen said.
The report also found that conviction rates for sexual assault were much lower than now-retired Adm. James Winnefeld, then-vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, claimed in testimony before Congress in 2013.
The Pentagon used the argument to discourage lawmakers from supporting a bill from Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., that would have stripped military commanders of their authority to bring sexual assault cases to court-martial and put the decision with an impartial military prosecutor outside the chain of command.
“Whether you agree or disagree with the policy at issue, every senator should be outraged, and revisit their votes,” Christensen said. “Congress should hold a hearing to investigate the extent to which the Pentagon knowingly relied upon false information to derail reforms they oppose.”
The military’s argument was used by several senators who voted against Gillibrand’s bill, including Sens. Claire McCaskill and Kelly Ayotte, according to a press release.
Gillibrand’s proposal last failed as an amendment to the Military Construction Authorization Act for Fiscal 2016 in June by a 50-49 vote.
This week, Congress is beginning to mark up the fiscal 2017 national defense policy bill.
“I am deeply troubled by the findings in this report,” Gillibrand said in a statement. “It is unacceptable for the Pentagon to mislead Congress in their testimony on any issue, but it is particularly disturbing when it is being done to oppose bipartisan reform to combat military sexual assault. The claims made by the Department of Defense were often repeated on the floor of the U.S. Senate during debate and in my own personal lobbying meetings with Senators. It is without doubt that these false claims had a serious impact on senators’ positions on the reform.”
The 93 cases cited by the Pentagon make up only a small portion of the 12,232 sexual assault reports the military received between 2010 and 2013, “most of which the military chose not the prosecute,” the report says.