In December 2015, I wrote a story about Major Jason Brezler, a Marine reservist being discharged from the Marine Corps.
I quoted a Marine Corps Times article which reported:
A Marine veteran in Congress has called on the country’s top law enforcement agency to investigate a senior Navy official’s decision to force out a Marine officer who tried to warn his comrades in Afghanistan about a suspected Taliban conspirator.
In a Dec. 3 letter to Defense Secretary Ash Carter, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., said the FBI should look into the case involving Maj. Jason Brezler, a Reserve civil affairs officer who sent classified information from a personal email account in 2012.
Scott Lutterloh, the acting assistant Navy secretary for manpower and reserve affairs, recently upheld the decision that Brezler be honorably discharged from the Marine Corps. But Hunter said Brezler’s case received “inadequate attention by the Department of Defense Inspector General and Navy criminal investigators.”
In his letter, Hunter urged the Pentagon to take steps to launch an FBI investigation of the case, to include the U.S. military’s relationship with Sarwar Jan, a corrupt Afghan police chief and the man at the center of Brezler’s email warning.
Unfortunately, the American military has allowed the actions of sexual predators in Afghanistan to continue, turning a blind eye or accepting it as part of the culture. That was the system Major Brezler was fighting.
The Marine Times updated the story today.
The article reports:
A board of inquiry recommended in December 2013 that Brezler be discharged for using his personal email account to send classified information to Marines in Afghanistan about an Afghan police chief accused of sexually assaulting young boys. Brezler was also accused of taking classified documents home from Afghanistan so he could write a book.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Joseph Bianco in New York ruled that the government had not granted Brezler full access to records related to his claim. Brezler was referred to the board of inquiry, which adjudicates claims of officer misconduct, after a story published in Marine Corps Times reported that Brezler asked for help from Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y.
“For example, if communications prior to the Marine Corps Times article indicate that the Navy did not contemplate a BOI [board of inquiry] , or indicate an affirmative decision not to initiate a BOI, such communications would be highly relevant to Major Brezler’s claim that the BOI was retaliatory,” Bianco wrote in Tuesday’s decision.