I wish now to welcome our like toanel we would remind them to survive to the atest expense possible in less than five minutes possible. They will be made part of the record. Our second panel consists of general james c condo c onville, vice chief of staff , vice army, moynahan chief of Naval Operations general stephen w wilson, vice chief of staff of the air force. Assistant, dont of the marine corps. That, you may now make europe and statement, general. Thank you. Ranking in the spirit, distinguished members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. The United States military is trusted in the world. We have to wake up and earn that trust. The armies down 51 . We know that one act breaks that trust of the American People. Senior misconduct in the United States army has no place. Our Senior Officers have developed, decades of relationships of leadership and character. We have provided additional training for those leaders elected to serve. The vast majority of us Senior Officers are demanding moral and ethical standards just as we, their soldiers, and the American People expect them to. We are not a Perfect Institution , but we strive to be one. Senior officers who fail to have the Army Standards are unaccountable. Our leaders are committed to upholding the standards of a profession, and ensuring all of our Senior Officers do the same. I appreciate your time and attention, and look forward to your questions. Thank you for the opportunity to be here. ,ost importantly this morning the foundation of our joint much weemonstrates how of our in the values institution. Trustenior leaders fail, at the institutional level is put at the rate at risk, which can hurt every aspect of developing and employing this force. Topic extremely seriously. While we all seem to be trending in the right direction, these matters were just rearticulated. We are an institution comprised of human human beings for foul. We have taken deliberate steps to train and developed around the listed officer corps, to promote get rid of ethical failures. We address them in ways that preserve the larger trust in the institution. Being transparent and accountable is part of this effort. By the time Senior Leaders are produced, they will have a Solid Foundation formed through years of experience, through the principles of ethical behavior and professional conduct. This will be reinforced and tested. As you have heard from our inspector general, we looked for traps. , we hope weevidence see Lessons Learned while we have ethical guidelines and rules to limit the consequences of this decisionmaking, rules alone are not what you and the American Public expect from us. You expect us to live up to Higher Standards of professional behavior. Along these lines centralal to our is to strengthen trust between our ranks, the institution, the American Public. I believe it strengthens our relationship with congress. Thank you for the opportunity to be transparent today. This topic is the foundation of our profession. Thank you for inviting me to here an honor to be with my vice chiefs. Of our 70s year of 46 of americas sons and daughters are in front of me. The backdrop of the capital behind them. That moment, i thought about what we owe those patriotic volunteers. In a word that came to mind was trust. View maintaining trust in confidence with the American Elements the essential of our past and future mission success. Its for that reason we deploy a critical contingent of learning. Emily operations of leadership, but in love and ethical standards. , seniorthose efforts oficers do break bonds trust. In those instances, we have robust systems of investigation and in cap accountability. I know we can speak to my fellow chiefs here. Our goal is for all airmen to do what is right at all times, regardless of the circumstances, and no matter the rank or the position. If they fall short of that goal, we will hold them accountable for their actions. Thanks for your continued leadership and partnership as we seek to achieve that goal, and by extension, maintain the trust of all airmen and American People. Chairman kaufman, breaking for thehere, thank you opportunity to appear and report to you on this important issue, more dutch moral and ethical conduct of our marine general officers. We know our nations citizens expect the best from our marines. They expect operational , both every on the battlefield and in their lives. We expect the same from ourselves. We accept this responsibility. Our core values guide our ethical conduct of every marine. Marines are custodians for these school that core values. This is a foundation of character and every marine, and it starts with them the family. Continued through our training, provided by our inspection programs, we have decisionmakers at every level of officer training. Ethical leadership as the foundation of leading marines. Over the last 10 years, marines have averaged 1. 5 cases per year of substantiated officer misconduct. Nearly half of them, the mistakes are administrative in nature. We had knowledge that there is always room to improve. We want to evolve our Education Training programs to ensure that the moral conduct of every marine is supported. We think the congress and subcommittee for the opportunity to discuss this issue. This remains the best military our nation requires and expects. I look forward to your questions. This, and ik appreciate an answer from the army navy, then air force and marine corps. Are familiar with the consequences of this. They are less familiar with some of the other administrative and that can beactions taken against service members. Could you explain the other options available to you when you disposing of senior missiles leader misconduct cases and the consequences thereof . If i could. Could. I we could do a memorandum concern , a memorandum of reprimand, but what really hurts an officer, is a general officer reprimanded we put in their official file. Basically ends their career as they go forward. As they go to retire, that is that judye board cates what rank they will retire as. Basically, you can lose 13 , depending out what rank you retire at, which is hundreds of thousands of dollars for some type of misconduct at that level. Yes, sir. I was going to mention a retirement determination progress process that is for any Senior Leader who has had a substantiated allegation that what we term, becomes adverse information to their record. We must do a board. We carry out that process. The determination for 12 stars is signed off by Senior Leaders in the navy. All services are at the secretary level. For 34 stars, determination must be approved by the secretary of defense. This. Me fully understand so that you give some sort of, some sort of letter that is , its a career killer. That person not going to get promoted. They may be able to finish out there to her of duty, on some level i suppose, be able to finish their career. Then, they go to retirement, and their review to determine whether or not theyre going to be doing regular time am i clear on that if at first, yes, sir. I only speak for the navy here if it is adverse, yes, sir. I only speak for the navy, but if an officer has substantiated allegations, they will not stay for the rest of their to her, will they be relieved of their command, duties, and asked to retire, then we go through the retirement great determination. So, somebody that you are going itslow to finish their a career killer, but youre going to let them finish their to her of duty . Not necessarily. Tour of duty . Not necessarily. General wilson . We have the same process. The same things apply. We have not determined whether they should serve in that job. In most cases, they have an article 15. If someone got a letter, was forced to retire, reduced in rank, and that retirement its the equivalent of a fine of hundreds of thousands of dollars, am i correct . Thats correct. Sir, we follow the same process. The one example i can give you, weeit it is 10 years old, had a two star, substantiated finding on him. He was retired. You can get a second star. He retires in 06. I did the calculation last night. If you compare his 06 retirement to an 08 retirement, what he lost in congress compensation is one thing i million dollars. Ok. 1. 9 million. Ok. Thank you for your conversations. I guess this question can be asked of you as well. Could you inform us by letter of how many courtmartials there officers eneral on general officers . The chairman just talked about the potential loss of rank, and loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars over ones lifetime in retirement, though they still keep their retirement. Im more interested in the value of a security clearance. Thats worth a lot of money. A whole lot more money than 200,000. These cases that have come before us, where they things that,d done you would question their moral turpitude, drunkenness, under normal circumstances, someone could in fact lose their security clearance. I wonder how many do lose their security clearance. Does anyone have any thoughts on that . If you dont, if you could provide that to us to the record, of these cases. We seen so much prominence, and we can provide them to you if you dont know them off the top of the ahead. Im curious how many lose their security clearance. Valuable, i think, than many of the things. Admiral, you talked about transparency in your opening remark. I think thats really important from the congressional oversight perspective. Discloseoes substantiated cases, but to my knowledge, there isnt any means by which each of your services would disclose, dukakis for instance, substantiated cases. Could you, each of you, and four months as to whether or not you would be supportive of that . This committee wants those cases, absolutely. Yes, maam. Yes, maam. No problem, mamma. Thank you. , the case has come up a number of times. Its probably the most egregious case in the history of, certainly the navy, if not the military in general. Because so many people are involved, and so many people corrupted by this individual, im stunned that there werent any bystanders that spoke up. , how did iton actually there were a number of cases investigated by nci s. They were overcharging for fuel, or the like that he was engaged in. In many many cases were dismissed. A postmortem of that, to look at where the holes within the chain of command, in terms of identifying the issues and addressing them . I hope you will respect this comment; its an ongoing federal investigation by the department of the u. S. Attorney. Very uncomfortable answering questions that could prejudice the case in any way. So, answering some of what you just asked could potentially cause us problems. When it is done and we are hopefully getting to the end of this when the files are turned over to us, we will do that. Theres a process in place to make sure that we evaluate every single case that comes to the navy. Whether they are handled by the department of justice or not, they come to us for final resolution. We cannot talk publicly about that until the department of justice is complete with their investigation. I appreciate that, and im butasking you to do that, from a policy standpoint, are there policies you recognize would be helpful in preventing exploding this from into scandals, that its hard to most issuesend revolve most issues revolved around contracting. We have taken a strong turn on the process by which we do that. Oversight intof how those contracts are issued, and who is issuing them. That sort of training and are supply core, and our general support core has been very strong over the last five years. We think that largely has helped us strive down the number of misconduct cases that have resulted outside of the scope of these cases. One last question. You think bystanders have a duty to report . A question for each of you. Absolutely. In every single case. We talk about this in Sexual Harassment training, Sexual Assault. Would call behaviors that are destructive in nature. Oftentimes, it can be quelled by a bystander. I completely agree. See something, say something. Thank you. If you are now recognized for five minutes. Thank you. I appreciate you being here and your leadership. I would like to go back to a question i asked the Previous Panel about the different spanks for different ranks. You think we are Holding People equally accountable in your view, but whether it is a midlevel nco, to a senior officer . Commanding general for three years, and courtmartial, irony handled a lot of the cases at the low level now. The chief of staff for the last we holdhs, i believe everyone appropriately accountable. We expect a higher standard of them. Both jim and i service partners. In every discipline or case, every single one that reaches the level of where we are trying to determine whether someone should retire early or without pay, so on and so forth, at least for active duty, we have seen everyone. As vice chiefs, we see them again. And we get to see them across the board. If we do not do this in a fair way, we are going to be held accountable. I agree with my counterparts. I would add that we hold our Senior Officers to an exceptionally high standard. We know we will be judged by that. As mike with my time at the vice chief. ,e will not have any problem any officer accountable. We will investigate and hold them accountable. I will add one thing. ,ur Senior Officers, one shot one shot near down. Perhaps on the junior ranks, which i to give them a second chance, at least its not a zero defect mentality. I appreciated Second Chances when i was 18 and 19. Me too. A rough hypothetical. We havethe issue is, someone who has served honorably , a one or two star, then you are a three star for 32, and they have a relationship or whatever, and you have to determine a retirement, deal the back to the two star are one start. One of the eight your point, they do something similar, how hard is that to determine . Is going back ranked to the 30year point or should it be more serious depending on the crime or action taken . How hard is that when you are making these determinations . Sometimes you go back to the last rank onhonorably served. If it is a junior rank, maybe she suffer a they suffer a careerending decision . I am curious. The great determination is a process that is in place for all of us. The reminder is, i dont care if it is a junior or senior marine, if the action is criminal, there is no rank involved. I can name that we have had one in the last five years. It was a senior officer, an 06. He is 0. He retires with no rank . He gets no retirement. He is in jail and he is zero. He has no rank at all. Any other comments . I would follow along with the comments. I agree. We have had two courtmartials. One i wont talk about right now, but they have been adjudicated over the last ten years and both officers were of criminal type nature. We will courtmartial them if they warrant that. We weigh every single case on its merits, looking at what the soldier or the officer has done over the many years and weigh it and put it together and try to do the right thing when it comes to making a decision on their future. Chairman, i yield back. You are now recognized for five minutes. Nang youthank you, mr. Chairman. How long are unsubstantiated reports kept . Do you know . I will start. Are we talking just Senior Officers, maam . Yes. Yes. We have other terms when we talk about investigations where there are substanceations and unsubstantiated but reportable. Reportable means it wasnt adverse, but it is still required by the senate for confirmation. It is a little bit different. Whats an example of something thats unsubstantiated but reportable . Lets say someone was accused of something. So many of these are fresh in my mind from a topic i am not at liberty to talk about. If it was you were out alleged to have gone to a dinner with a contractor and accepted that dinner and it was unsubstantiated, that it was accepted by you but it was alleged that you did attend a dinner with a contractor, that can be reportable but not so people going through an entire investigative process, they are cleared but in a nomination, even though they are cleared, it is reportable to the senate . The senate is entitled to any information on an officer being considered for promotion to the rank of 07 and above. That was kind of my line of questioning in the last session. It seemed like all the panelists say that unsubstantiated claims have never taken into account for jobs or rank. Now, i am hearing they are. Unsubstantiated claims are . They have to be accounted for but that doesnt prevent them from being promoted. Within the services, is there anywhere formally or informally in your process where you actually look at unsubstantiated 02 18 14 brad r. Wenstrup brad r. Wenstrup investigations as part of the process of considering someone for a rank . One of the things we look at is titling. We look at vetting an officer. We look at all the databases that come up to see. Ill give you an example. This did not hold up the officer. The officer was titled because his dog got loose in the neighborhood. The mps came by and titled him for having a loose dog in the neighborhood. He was substantiated for having the dog loose in the neighborhood. I am talking about where people are cleared. Are they somehow in any formal or informal process, are people looking at the files of their cleared allegations and cleared investigation as to whether they are going to offer them a new job or promotion . Do you see what im trying to get to . If you are innocent we dont do that. General wilson, sorry. General walters . No. We are required to report all the information to the senate. All information includes unsubstantiated claims . You have to report whether they were investigated in some cases. These are the rules that are set. We dont have a big stack in my office of all the unsubstantiated cases. Thats the legal review. They know what parameters the senate requires that goes in with the confirmation package. I sign off on those. It is usually a paragraph that says, we will look at this and no substanceations that will tell me more if they are interested. You will remember a nonpunitive letter between the commander and the individual, not for anyone else. A nonpunitive letter for a flag officer or nominee for a flag is required by the senate to be reported . Okay. Are you saying it is the current law im im talking about i. G. Investigations that are closed just because they were accused even though they are innocent, it has to be reported to the senate . If something was issued to an officer thats up for promotion, to flag, anyone else with a nonpunitive, that is no one elses business, but those are still required to be brought forth. Is there anywhere in the process within the services that unsubstantiated investigations are looked at formally or informally whether you are considering somebody for a new job or promotion . In the promotion board, if it is not adverse information, it is not examined during the promotion board. I am talking about as you all sit around talking about who is going to be put into this next job or the next star. As we are looking at a slate, i guess is what you are talking about, is we do a slate continuing through the year, because things change and signals on people change. I cant remember anybody saying there is 02 21 46 james c. Mcconville james c. Mcconville an unsubstantiated complaint. That never comes up. Im over my time. I dont know if you get what i am trying to get at. Accused doesnt mean guilty. I am trying to make sure that is being taken into consideration. You are now recognized for five minutes. Nangthank you. I have a question i think i am seeing arise. It is not at the level of some of the cases we have been talking about today. You have not general officers but officers that have the responsibility of making sure that their troops are doing the things they are supposed to do. I have become aware of a couple cases 02 22 30 Stephen Steve w. Wilson Stephen Steve w. Wilson where the lower ranking person, officer or enlisted, wants to resist that. They say, listen, you have to be in line and get your job done. The person that is not doing their job, go and accuse some kind of bias that, that this leader has some kind of bias. These leaders are now the accused of something, just because they were trying to make sure someone did their job. They make this claim that there is some kind of bias. Now, that leader is tied up in knots, distracted from doing the job they are supposed to do every day, because they have to defend themselves. We are losing good people because they get to the point, i want out. I dont need this harassment, when all i am frying to do is do whats right. You are all shaking your head like you are familiar with type of antics that are taking place. I am not saying there cant be leaders out of line. How do we defend the people that are getting tied up in knots and kept from doing their job in leadership because somebody who is not doing their job decides they are going to take that route . Are you seeing a rise in this . I can speak fofr us, sir. We are very concerned about that. We want commanders not to look over their shoulders when they are making decisions and we want to make sure our soldiers have access, if they see something wrong, they come forward. It is trying to find that sweet spot in between. We have to watch that as we go forward. You heard i. G. Talk about that, kind of concerned about how some people are taking advantage of that. We have to watch that. There are things we can do when we look at some of the cases. Some may be triage up front. We take a look at it. There is risk in that. The best thing to do is do a 400500day investigation and make sure you do not have any issues. You may hold up someones retirement and i am not sure that is fair. I would like to see some focus on speeding up that process. I am seeing some good people get dragger through the mud for absolutely no good just becauseever, you told someone they need to get their o. E. R. Done. That is a little bit ridiculous and they start saying, you are picking on me. Obviously, im speaking from a real experience. I would love to hear from more of you. Sir, i think we have a process. We want whistle blowers to have the option to come forward and tell us wrong things that are being done. That reprisal process right now is broad ranging. We have a thing called request mass mast. Any young marine can go all the way up the chain of command to get whatever he or she believes is an error corrected. Instead of using that, they have to talk to the commander and the commanders commander, instead of doing that, they pick up the phone an make a complaint on a hotline. They didnt get the award they thought they should or that their fitness report was active or they got declined on leave. These are administrative in nature. We have the request process to adjudicate those and accommodate those and it allows leaders to fix things when they are broken. As soon as they pick up the phone for those kind of issues, it goes to a different process, wri, which, as you have pointed out, can take too long. By the way, it is not being involved as an outside observer. We were a little bit of out of bounds on the whistle blower piece. About 96 of the cases are not substantiated. We are spending a lot of time but it is not in balance, to your point. That has a Chilling Effect not only on the commanders but on the force when they cant execute good discipline and you feel this cloud above you. We completely agree, if somebody is going to be investigated, it should be done in a timely manner. If they are found guilty, lets move on with that. If not, on the innocent side, they should remove that quickly. It is taking way too long. Timeliness is the issue here to your point, sir. When we can get better at that, it will help resolve a lot of this. We are spending the same amount of time on very cuefew cases that are ultimately substantiated. Mr. Russell, you are now recognized for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman and thank each of you for being here today. A lot of the statistics that we see amalgamated together include military misconduct, what would be clearly viewed as potential misconduct but may not be translatable in the civilian world but it also includes a wide array of tools that are used to address that misconduct. All of that gets rolled up into this statistical analysis. I guess my question would be, what percent of the cases that we see and some of the statistics i have looked at, maybe 10 of the cases, warrant further investigation. 90 thrown out of the 10 that are there. Roughly 30 of those end up being substantiated. Those are rough figures. There seems to be some consistency there. We are still talking small percentages. Even among that portion, not all of those are for the big headline cases that we see. A lot of them i will try to give that answer for you. We have there were some things. Its like a soldier buffing the something,tever, they would never have anything to enter a file. There were never be any offense. That can apply to general officers. And demands expects this other Senior Leaders, and in the corporate world, this would not be anything to translate. Thats part of the statistical problem. We have had things from officer evaluation evaluation reports. Technically, he was substantiated. Process. Through a way to anl the inappropriate relationship. Its an inappropriate sexual relationship. We hold people accountable. We went to a Gentlemans Club we hold people very accountable, as you should in the military. General. For the last five years, we have had 77 cases. Many of them are on call. Involved Personnel Matters and those that involve some type of Sexual Harassment or inappropriate relationship was under 15 . Thank you. General walters. Sir, in the last ten years, we have had 15. Most of them were admin. I had one t. A. D. Where he got extra money on his t. D. Claim. I guess thats theft. That could be chargeable out in the civilian world. We took care of it. I think it was 10. We made him cut a check and we reprimanded him. I appreciate that. Mr. Chairman, thats part of what im trying to establish. A lot of the statistics are rolled in to where it looks like a greater problem of misconduct. My final question for admiral moran would be, when a case comes up like that that has translated over to the Justice Department, is the military limited in how it can even comment or even defend or maybe portray the other side of the story while it is in the Justice Department and outside of the department of defense . Yes, sir, we absolutely are. So i look forward to the day when i can go back to this committee and testify about what we have learned from that and the things we have put in place to address it. Thats where i was going with congresswoman mcsallys question. I am very focused on that right now. It is hard to talk about it. In some of those where they go through a justice review and end up in the navy review and are ultimately ub unsubstantiated after years of investigation are tough to account for. Congress and the senate expects us to address that even though they were unsubstantiated so they know we have looked thoroughly at it. That was my point. I think thats important to note, mr. Thats important to note, mr. Chairman. Many times what might be the appearances that they are trying to hide or harbor information, the reality is when it translates from department of defense over to the department of justice, they are prohibited from providing very illuminating or alternative views. Yet, they cant. I think thats very important to establish in the hearing today. In conversations with one of you, i guess it was over someone being reprimanded for endorsement, it came up that general officers could have outside employment. Then, we checked the ucmj and found out there was no prohibition for general officers to have outside employment, which i think is pretty stunning. Would you approve of us passing an amendment that would prohibit outside employment . I certainly would. I dont know what general officer ha time to have outside employment. If he is in the army, i will get a new job for him. We will go back and look at the statutes. I want to believe that we are prohibited from outside employment. We are not prohibited from serving on certain organizations that are for the benefit of the military service or volunteer organizations as a board member or contribute to that. Generally speaking, we have been prohibited for as long as i can remember. I agree with my colleagues. No, maam, i have only experienced it once. I was invited to be a member of a board for heroes flight. My counsel said you cant. I didnt have the time anyway. General wilson, i am going to ask you to write me a memo on this but to have 70,000 courtmartials in but to have 70,000 courtmartials in the air force and never once a courtmartial of an officer suggests that maybe there is something to that. So i would just like you to write me a memo to give me some of your thoughts on that. The ucmj has a statute of limitations that in many cases is less than it would be in the civilian world, for instance, for bribery. Ucmj has a fiveyear statute of limitations. In the general society, it can be 710 years. Would you look at the statute of limitations for various forms of conduct in the military and give us your recommendations as to which ones should be increased. Finally, general walters, this was in the paper today, in case you havent seen it. Is that usa today. Yes. It is marine corps brushed off , sex charges. What is stunning about this particular case is that you have two women who have been sexually harassed by the same person and nothing happened. And when the one survivor of the Sexual Harassment went to her superior, they said, no one will believe you. If you have heard anything from the members of congress over the last few months is, we believe the women. So i hope that this becomes an anomaly as we continue to evolve in terms of the issue of Sexual Harassment. I think we have a huge problem in our academies and i think we have a huge problem in our services. That isnt even getting to the issue of Sexual Assault but the issue of Sexual Harassment. I think we have to do something dramatic to shift the culture. With that, mr. Chairman, i yield back. Thank you. As we talked about in both panels, we have got probably an issue with reprisal with the whistleblower being over utilized. Legitimate cases need to be addressed and people held accountable. But the system is being bogged down with a lot of other cases. In some cases, as we all know, maybe their Situational Awareness is low and their perception of reality is such that they are reporting what they believe to be wrongdoing. But in some cases, somebody may be fraudulently claiming wrongdoing of someone above them. You all investigate that. Again, assuming the person has been exonerated, has there ever been examples of going back and the accused being looked at for false claims or fraudulent claims or lying to investigators or anything like that in those cases . No examples . Im not aware of any. Is there a process to take a look at that . Somewhere along the line . I will put that under the heading of you dont want to put anything out there that will preclude someone from coming forward in the future. Totally agree. However, if somebody has brought together a false allegation if they truly believed in their allegation, although it proved to be false, i still dont think and it turned out not to be true, i dont think there is my bet would be that would be the vast majority of cases but there may be a rare case within the process that you do need to take a look at. Their own conduct is the issue. Is there any process to take a look at that, whether somebody lied or has a fraudulent claim or anything like that . Everybody deserves due process. I am told there is a process. Can we get back to you with a written response to give you more detail behind it . Sure, great. And i dont know if you all can answer this versus the first panel but what sort of training do the investigators go through . Is there any sort of review to ensure they dont have a prosecutorial mindset of rewarding and getting some kills versus factfinding and just oversight of the investigator selection and processes . I think thats another one we can get back to you on, congresswoman. But there have been perceptions of that in the past. I know that i have personally had discussions with the gentleman sitting behind me and our i. G. Chair. When we see that, he normally addresses that in his command and i trust he will take appropriate action if there is any evidence of that. Any other comments . I agree. The same thing with i. G. We have a lot of checks and balances in the legal side and the command side. From where we said it is not , arbitrary as to how these decisions are made. Thats why they take some time. They are reviewed at every single level to make sure we dont have things like that happening. Anyone else . I think all of the i. G. S would say they spend a lot of time on making sure their investigators are trained right and appropriately. There are probably cases where it has happened with overzealous investigators but i know all of us emphasize the importance of the training and doing it right. You always have to be on the outlook for that, maam. Thanks. Would you all support if someone who is exonerated, wanted there to be a Public Statement made that they were exonerated, would you support a process that you all did that . I would be grad to do it. Same. Yes, maam. Is that something we have to do or is that something you could do within your own procedures to allow that option if they want you to make a statement that they have been cleared . Looking at the procedures, maam, my sense is that much like the i. G. S told you, once it is over, most members who are exonerated just want it to be done. If somebody would want it to be publicly i dont see why. Can you all get back to me as to whether thats internal or something we need to do . Great, thanks. I yield back. Mr. Russell, you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Just just one comment on the outside employment, unless something is changed. Officers in all the services are prohibited from doing outside employment. The exception is probably back to the time we have been wearing tricorn hats was they could write for publication and if you had some particular person whose wartime memoirs or experiences were needing to be captured or published, people like general marshall and others, people wanted to know and they were allowed to publish their memoirs or do things of that nature. I am not sure that a bill would be needed. I think all of that is currently in place. We also dont want to put prohibitions on our guard and reserve flag officers. My goodness. They wouldnt be able to eat and feed their families. If any of you care to comment on that, thats fine. General walters, you didnt have a chance to reply to we are accustomed in congress in getting headlines that we dont deserve or maybe we do. Would you care to comment on the headline that was presented earlier . No, sir. It was brought to our attention on monday night. I know the reporter asked for some information. We couldnt turn the foia information and redact the p. I. Fast enough for him before he published. We have our lawyers looking into it. They are with the complainant right now working out the mitigation plan. We are looking deep into it. I dont know all the facts yet but i will find all the facts. Yield . L the gentleman of course. This is a case that dates back to 2013 and 2017. Yes, maam. I think 2013 was in the actions. What i was briefed on last night, 2013 were the actions. The complaint came in, and i think, i believe, i dont know but i believe mitigation was put in place. The mitigation broke down. Now, we have to go and look at mitigation again. There was a second woman who then came forward. That one never reported but now she has. So we have to look at it. One of the problems is getting people to report and having trust in the system. Weve seen the increase in reporting. We have established through the task force. I will take this opportunity to offer a full brief on all we have done since last year. I dont want to take the gentlemans time. I reclaim the time and thank the gentlelady. It is important we establish those trusts and do those things. I think, mr. Chairman with your , leadership, we have seen from our service academy, superintendents and commandants that have come and provided testimony, many times there is a very good process. When mention was made about there being a big problem i , would disagree. Our hearings have substantiated that while there are issues, it certainly must swiftly be dealt with when compared to collegiate america. My goodness. Colleges would love to have the problems our academies have in terms of virtually nil statistics. That doesnt mean that the things that happen, they have to be swiftly dealt with to the fullest extent of the uniform code and law and criminal cases. I think that those hearings have been very, very helpful. Thank you for your response, general walters on that. Being a true conservative, i will even give back some time, mr. Chairman. I wish to thank all of the witnesses for their testimony this morning. Senior leader misconduct is an extraordinary important issue. I want to thank the witnesses for their candor. There being no further business, this subcommittee stands adjourned. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] e presiding officer the majority leader. Mr. Mcconnell madam president , im pleased to announce that our bipartisan, bicameral negotiations on defense spending and other priorities have yielded a significant agreement. I want to thank my friend, the democratic leader, for joining me this afternoon and for the productive discussions that have generated this proposal. The compromise we have reached will ensure that for the first time in years, our armed forces will have more of the resources they need to keep america safe. It will help us serve the
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