[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 2]
[House]
[Page 2827]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        MILITARY SEXUAL ASSAULT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Speier) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. SPEIER. Mr. Speaker, before presenting the topic on which I plan 
to speak about this morning, I want to take a couple of minutes to talk 
about the career of the gentleman from New Jersey, Congressman Rob 
Andrews, who leaves this House on February 18 after a remarkable 
career.
  We will be losing an amazing talent, a great intellect, and a fine 
leader. It has been a great privilege to serve with him and to watch 
him do his work so ably. We will miss you, Rob.
  I now rise, Mr. Speaker, to speak for the 29th time on this House 
floor about rape in the military. I rise today to speak on a scathing 
report on military sexual assault by the Associated Press. Sexual 
assault scandals exposed by the press are the new norm for the 
military, but this damning report offers us a window into the gross 
mishandling of sexual assaults at the hands of the chain of command on 
a massive scale.
  This weekend, a deluge of sex crime reports in Japan have been 
revealed, thanks not to the military disclosing them, but to the 
Associated Press through FOIA requests. The data reveal how broken the 
military scales of justice truly are and offers a rare glimpse into how 
reports of sexual assaults are handled.
  Many of these stories involved commanders that undermined 
investigations, refused to bring a case to court-martial, or overturned 
a case after a jury had found the perpetrator guilty and sentenced them 
to jail. Of the 1,000 reports, punishments were wildly inconsistent, 
and of the suspects determined to be guilty, two-thirds of them spent 
no time in jail at all. In more than 30 cases, a letter of reprimand 
was the only punishment. What is truly unacceptable is that we have to 
rely on FOIA requests at all.
  These cases and their outcomes must face the light of day and the 
scrutiny of the taxpayers that pay for our military in the first place, 
and I intend to work to make sure that this happens.
  What is clear from these cases is that commanders are part of the 
problem, not the solution. Commanders often decided to not move forward 
with courts-martial, but when they did--even with DNA evidence and 
tape-recorded confessions of rape--the predators were typically given 
mild punishments after pleading to lesser offenses. It is the culture 
of the military that the rules simply don't apply. Commanders also 
lessened numerous punishments unilaterally and, in two cases, threw out 
guilty verdicts and punishments completely.
  Among the most disturbing stories in the AP analysis was about a 
doctor at a health clinic at a Naval Air Facility near Tokyo. Airman 
Tina Wilson went to the clinic in 2008 to have a dressing changed 
following surgery on her tailbone. But the doctor, Lieutenant Commander 
Anthony L. Valasquez, decided it was perfectly okay to slip his hand 
down the front of her panties and then have the nerve to give her a 
smile and a wink as she walked out the door.
  Wilson complained, an investigation was started, and three other 
women also reported the doctor had touched them inappropriately, but 
after 10 months, the investigation was closed with no action taken, 
according to an NCIS document on the investigation obtained by the AP.
  The story gets even more disgusting. Two years later, the Navy 
finally filed charges against the doctor after more than 25 women 
reported he touched them, too. But guess what? Most of the charges were 
dropped under a plea deal, and the doctor served just a week in the 
brig. He was dismissed and thankfully stripped of his license, but 
Valasquez could have been stopped years before. Instead, he was allowed 
to carry on his lewd behavior and scar so many more victims.
  Airman Tina Wilson left the Navy, distraught over how the case was 
handled, according to the AP analysis. This is another of the thousands 
of tragedies of how sexual assault victims are treated in the military 
justice system. They often leave or are forced out after making their 
reports and enduring a grueling, unjust process. Survivors often face 
retaliation and punishment while their predators get letters of 
reprimand.
  The retaliation is brutal. Survivors are debased, humiliated, and 
then discharged by the military they so proudly served because another 
servicemember raped them or sexually assaulted them.
  As we know, there are an estimated 26,000 sexual assaults a year in 
the military, but reporting is low. Courts-martial are rare, and the 
conviction rate is less than 1 percent. This is the result of a legal 
system beholden to the chain of command that some are hell-bent on 
protecting.
  It is time to pass the STOP Act and bring back justice for all 
servicemembers, especially victims. When will we stop protecting the 
predators?

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