Politico: Accuser Kimberly Hanks takes on Air Force
Politico reports on Aviano victim Kimberly Hanks, who worked with Protect Our Defenders to push lawmakers to create an independent and impartial military justice system. Protect Our Defenders also protested the reassignment of Hanks’ attacker to Davis-Monthan Air Base in Tucson, AZ, where many of her family members reside.
The accuser in a high-profile military sexual assault case that has outraged members of Congress says scores of newly released emails and documents expose the military’s “good old boys” culture — and serious missteps in its investigation of her assault.
Kimberly Hanks, who spoke with POLITICO from Edinburgh, Scotland, worked as a physician’s assistant at a hospital at Aviano Air Base in Italy, when she accused an Air Force fighter pilot of sexual assault last year. Once she did, she says military officials made her life almost unbearable.
“I came forward to make it easier for other people, to be a role model for other people who are younger because I couldn’t have done this 25 years ago or 30 years ago. But they did their best to assassinate my character. They pulled a good old boys routine and still expect to get away with it,” Hanks said.
