General Sinclair, Sexual Assault and Military Justice
Bloomberg View reports:
Brigadier General Jeffrey A. Sinclair’s trial on sexual assault charges began the day after the Senate blocked a bill that would change the way such cases are handled. Sinclair, the former deputy commander of the 82nd Airborne Division and a onetime rising star in the Army, is Exhibit A in why the current system needs to be changed — and it isn’t the reason you may think.
In a nail-biting roll-call vote last Thursday that pitted allies against one another, woman against woman and veteran against veteran, 10 Republicans supported a measure sponsored by Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand that would have removed sexual assaults and other major crimes from the military chain of command. Ten Democrats voted against it. Senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, who are potential Republican presidential candidates, voted yes and were warned by Senator Lindsey Graham that he would remind folks that they showed themselves “willing to fire every commander in the military.”
Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill, who has proposed a bill that changes the way sex crimes are handled but keeps responsibility for prosecution within the chain of command, voted against Gillibrand’s version, which failed 55 to 45. (On Monday, McCaskill’s bill passed the Senate 97-0.)
