Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is on the brink of success in her years-long campaign to get sexual assault cases removed from the military chain of command. But getting over the finish line may depend on whether she can overcome wariness about broader changes she’s seeking to the military justice system.
There is now widespread support for using independent military lawyers to handle sexual misconduct cases, but Gillibrand is promoting legislation that goes beyond that, extending that change to all major crimes. Top Pentagon officials and key lawmakers are open to the sexual assault shift, but they say applying it more broadly requires far more study and debate.
Gillibrand said the wider change is necessary to combat racial injustice within the military, where studies have found that Black people are more likely to be investigated and arrested for misconduct. She intends to press that point in the coming days.
Asked if she might compromise on her bill, Gillibrand said that time has passed. “We’ve been doing that for eight years. We’ve been getting something through every year, and some things just don’t work. You need this broad-based reform,” the New York Democrat said. “This is a bill whose time has come.”
For years, however, lawmakers have framed their push for change in the military justice system around problems with sexual misconduct cases. Victims — largely women — have long said they are reluctant to file sexual assault or harassment complaints because they fear they won’t be believed or will face retaliation. They’ve complained that allegations are sometimes dismissed by a good ol’ boys network among unit commanders or that attackers get away with minimal punishments.
Those complaints have resonated, and support has grown on Capitol Hill and in the Pentagon, where senior defense leaders acknowledge that, despite years of effort, they’ve made little progress combating sexual misconduct in the ranks. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for the first time said they were open to taking sexual assault and harassment charges out of the chain of command.
But both also said that extending the change to all major crimes would require more time and review.
