Judge overturns Brezler decision
Marine Major Jason Brezler warned folks in Afghanistan about an Afghan police chief using his personal email account to transmit classified information to folks that he thought were in danger. A board of inquiry recommended that the Major be discharged for that. He took the decision to a judge and according to the Marine Corps Times, that judge sided with the major.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Joseph Bianco in New York ruled that the government had not granted Brezler full access to records related to his claim. Brezler was referred to the board of inquiry, which adjudicates claims of officer misconduct, after a story published in Marine Corps Times reported that Brezler asked for help from Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y.
[…]
Brezler will remain in the Marine Corps and Bianco ordered the Navy to hold a new board of inquiry hearing, at which Brezler could “fully and fairly present relevant evidence” to support his claims of retaliation.
“This is a stunning rebuke of the fundamentally unjust proceedings to which this decorated Marine was subjected for over three years,” Brezler’s attorney Michael Bowe said in a statement on Tuesday.
Brezler had sent classified information warning his mates about Sarwar Jan, an Afghan police chief who Brezler had removed from another base years earlier because Jan trafficked in young boys. A few weeks after Brezler’s warning, one of those boys killed three Marines at FOB Delhi. After he sent the information, Brezler reported the violation to his commander who relieved him from his duties and gave him a poor fitness report.
Category: Marine Corps
The order of the day is punishment for sins actual and those imagined.
Way to go Major, get some !!!
I’ve never understood this. He did the right thing, but was punished for it.
You know, when you hear people planning a major crime and you report it, you should not be the one who is suspect.
I think “Mad Dog” is going to take names and kick ass in the Marines upper echelon!
Now bring charges against your Commander for failing to follow orders…i.e. knowingly didn’t grant you access to information you were entitled too, then add conduct unbecoming, (failure to provide for the welfare of his subordinates,) knock on providing aid and comfort, and we can call it a party.
That would be sweet, unlikely no doubt but really, really sweet.
In a just world…
This is one of those tricky catch-22s, while I applaud him for having the fortitude to warn his fellow Marines he did violate military regulations by disclosing classified material through unclassified email. I think the best thing here is to reinstate him as a Marine, but either revoke or suspend his clearance.
Retroactively declare him on special assignment to the State Department and it’ll all be good; they seem to allow the use of personal email for official, classified business.
Can’t be a commissioned officer, or E-8/E-9 without at minimum, a Secret clearance.
He would be processed out anyway for not having a clearance.
Only after he went thru a board. The issue of classified information on his personal computer isn’t black and white. The good captain had to use his personal laptop to generate operational reports, because the USMC didn’t provide his location with one. The reports were not classified at they time he wrote them, but were classified later when bumped up to higher systems.
“The reports were not classified at they time he wrote them, but were classified later when bumped up to higher systems.”
That doesn’t make sense that an unclassified report would be classified simply because it was put on a classified system. They must have left out information when drafting it on the unclass computer and filled in the blanks when they transferred the report. A dangerous practice IMHO.
Everything that is put in a classified system becomes classified.
OPSEC 101.
No not everything that goes on a classified system is classified. Those systems are used to generate unclassified information in-addition to classified information.
Couldn’t he revert to an enlisted rank? On the Army side, I’ve heard of LTs and CPTs who didn’t have time for or didn’t want to attend BOLC or CCC to lose their commission and revert to E-5. But perhaps in those cases they were prior service, which gave them something to revert to.
That’s pretty rare, and the loss of security clearance would have been accompanied by bad paper of some type.
It was more common years ago. I met a Captain working on his Masters while an ROTC cadet, a year later I ran into him again when he was an E-6 at Range Control. My Division CSM had been a CPT, then reverted to E-7 and made E-9 three years later. He continued to get promoted in the RC, so eventually retired as an O-6.
This is where the “slap on the wrist” is properly practiced.
“Verbally Admonished” is one way – no paper.
If we have established that “convenience” and “because I wanted to” is sufficient need to bend the rules, we cannot in good conscience smack down this Marine for his actions.
It didn’t say HE sent classified, he said the police chief was sending classified!!
desert – I think there is some poor sentence structure here that is confusing:
“Marine Major Jason Brezler warned folks in Afghanistan about an Afghan police chief using his personal email account to transmit classified information to folks that he thought were in danger.”
The pronoun “his” in the dependent clause “using his personal email” refers back to Major Brezler, not to “an Afghan police chief”. The normal grammar rule that a pronoun refers back to the closest noun misleads the reader to make that mistake.
Reading the other reports, however, clarifies that it was Major Brezler who used his personal email account to warn those he thought may be in danger from this Afghan police chief’s “boys” – and in so doing transmitted classified information over an unsecured channel.
Hope that clears it up for you.
Marine officer puts the safety of fellow Marines ahead of rules. What a concept. His actions saved lives.
That he used personal email, in violation of standards, to convey classified information is, granted, wrong and ought to be addressed.
That he was trying to protect his men is right, and ought to be considered.
If there was no alternative path to provide the warning in a timely manner, then I would be inclined to view this as a “field expedient” method of trying to save American lives. No directly authorized, but used under the overriding principle of “keep your men alive and safe.”
Right, if his superiors were using their brainpans for something other than a holding point for covers…
Wrong isn’t always wrong if good comes of it, and the unfortunate breach of security saved lives which to my way of thinking is what mattered here. I understand the problem with the breach, and I realize it is something that has to be addressed. But there were other more appropriate methods of dealing with it.
When we as a nation to refuse to address the simple fact that our supposed allies in the region capture and rape young boys as a cultural phenomenon things like this can result. If Brezler had been able to shoot that child raping prick in the first place instead of just denying him base access the child rapist would never have been alive to compromise Marines in the first place.
When your allies fuck kids and you don’t do anything about you are child rapist enabling motherfuckers….and under that light I probably don’t much care for your fucking rules anyway.
Roger that. The UCMJ frowns on buttfucking children, so any order to ignore it or allow it is ILLEGAL, and not bound to be obeyed. To do otherwise would be a violation of the UCMJ, at a minimum Article 134.
Seem to remember other “field expedient” solutions being used in the past to pass on at least sensitive data in order to save lives, when no other alternative was available. One such example that comes to mind was during Operation Urgent Fury (1983) when one member of the invasion force placed a long distance, commercial telephone call to Fort Bragg, N.C. to obtain C-130 gunship support for his unit which was under fire. His message was relayed via satellite and the gunship responded.
Granted there was a time/urgency factor involved back in 1983, so this may not be fully apples to apples.
-Ish
Fukk abuncha A!
Congressman Peter King is no shrinking violet and as a conservative Republican, he’ll likely have access to the incoming SecDef. Be interesting to see what Mattis might think of this.
I had not thought of that, Poe.
With Mattis at the helm, those in charge may have a change of outlook and realize that taking care of one’s men is a priority, and re-evaluate their perspective in light of that.
I would not be surprised to hear that some in the O-ranks may be seeking early retirement…
PT. King a conservative? Peter King? New York’s Peter King? That guy? Conservative Review gives him a Liberty Score of 27. For comparison purposes, Bernie Sanders has a score of 17. For contrast, there’s Ted Cruz who rates a 97.
YESSSS!
Poe…..I respectfully disagree….Conservative? No way in hell.
Until he was re-districted a couple of years ago he was my Representative – the only correct about his title was his name the (R) after it.
Conservative? NOT!
BTW. Jason is no push over. He is well known, respected and is FDNY RESCUE 2 team member.
It is said, “when NYPD Patrol needs help they call NYPD Emergency Services Unit (ESU) and when ESU needs help they call FDNY RESCUE”.
Absolutely spot on!
I hope this comes out well for the Major. He took care of his men first and that means a lot. I hope this does not hinder his career either.
Seems to me that this man will be blackballed – he could do 30 years and remain a Major.
A pity, for sure.
If I’m wrong someone please educate me.
Brezler saved the lives of fellow Marines downrange by sending the info to them in the fastest means possible and then reported his actions to his commander – the mark of an honorable man and Marine.
Think about this…. On Pearl Harbor Day, if someone from the cast of hundreds involved in passing on intel to the commanders in Hawaii (Kimmel and Short) actually picked up the phone and called them instead of relying on Western Union to deliver the news that the Japanese were going to attack, how many lives could have been saved?
Better yet, how many of our famous military leaders have had a “screw up” in their past, and succeeded when given the chance?
Major Brezler did he right thing, in my book… it’s the others in the Chain of Command, with their “zero defect” mindset, that failed him.
I hate to pick nits, but if memory serves there were no trans-Pacific phone cables installed at that time. They had to use Western Union to send a message.
There were actually several “short of war” warnings sent in the weeks before the attack, to the extent that it is questionable whether they would have taken the latest warning very seriously if they had received it before the attack.
…But point taken. The Major didn’t waste time with red tape because he wanted to warn people quickly.
His greatest offense–perhaps his only offense–was in mentioning that the phuker liked little boys. This was in 2012 when the deviants were to be protected no matter what.
Can we add that to The 0’s list of accomplishments?
I just read the original summary of what he did and the action taken against him is a complete overreaction. He got screwed. Seems to me he didn’t realize that the info was classified, but did later on and had the integrity to report himself.
The issue of getting classified information to his shipmates securely should have been addressed, he should have been lightly slapped, and then congratulated for looking out for his fellow Marines.
Shit like this happens a lot, but not all of the people who do it have the integrity to report themselves.
I think he knew it was classified, and he also knew that he had retained classified information on a personal device. He didn’t “realize” that the information was classified, he was informed by the recipient that he had just transmitted classified information on an unclassified network.
He did get the shaft however. He had not intention of exposing classified information, and that is the bottom line. Discharge for this type of violation is exceedingly extreme. The worst I ever saw was a Letter of Instruction, and in fact that was the initial “punishment” I received for loss of SECRET material, which the component commander rejected and ordered re-investigated with the understanding that I was either responsible and court martial would be convened, or I was not responsible. Thankfully the O-6 who conducted the re-investigation found me without fault otherwise I would not have pinned on my anchors that year.
Since Obozo took the office of community organizer in chief in 2009, our leadership became risk adverse and brown nosers and just plain weak.
They are all politicians first and officers second. You wouldn’t believe all the crap I heard officers talk about trump. And this was in an infantry battalion.
For example, they all to a man believe in anthropogenic climate change. I blame it on college. I am so glad we got online colleges now.
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