WASHINGTON (AP) – The Pentagon is relying on information it won’t make public to dispute an Associated Press investigation that found the military misled Congress about sexual assault cases to blunt support for Senate legislation.
In a report sent Thursday to a bipartisan group of senators, the Pentagon refers to undisclosed files about several of the cases to challenge AP’s findings. But the response, which faults AP for inconsistencies and misunderstandings, fails to conclusively counter the investigation.
The report also criticizes a separate examination of the cases by the advocacy group Protect Our Defenders. The group’s president, retired Col. Don Christensen, fired back at the Pentagon in a statement Friday.
“The Defense Department repeatedly accused Protect Our Defenders of misunderstanding the military justice process,” he wrote. “Yet they are the ones who mischaracterized this process to Congress in the first place.” Christensen is the former chief prosecutor of the Air Force.
Defense Department spokesman Eric Pahon said the importance of protecting the privacy of sexual assault victims “inevitably limits the ability of the department to release certain information.”