I wish now to welcome our like toanel we would remind them to survive to the atest expense possible in less than five minutes possible. They will be made part of the record. Our second panel consists of general james c condo c onville, vice chief of staff , vice army, moynahan chief of Naval Operations general stephen w wilson, vice chief of staff of the air force. Assistant, dont of the marine corps. That, you may now make europe and statement, general. Thank you. Ranking in the spirit, distinguished members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. The United States military is trusted in the world. We have to wake up and earn that trust. The armies down 51 . We know that one act breaks that trust of the American People. Senior misconduct in the United States army has no place. Our Senior Officers have developed, decades of relationships of leadership and character. We have provided additional training for those leaders elected to serve. The vast majority of us Senior Officers are demanding moral and ethical standards just as we, their soldiers, and the American People expect them to. We are not a Perfect Institution , but we strive to be one. Senior officers who fail to have the Army Standards are unaccountable. Our leaders are committed to upholding the standards of a profession, and ensuring all of our Senior Officers do the same. I appreciate your time and attention, and look forward to your questions. Thank you for the opportunity to be here. ,ost importantly this morning the foundation of our joint much weemonstrates how of our in the values institution. Trustenior leaders fail, at the institutional level is put at the rate at risk, which can hurt every aspect of developing and employing this force. Topic extremely seriously. While we all seem to be trending in the right direction, these matters were just rearticulated. We are an institution comprised of human human beings for foul. We have taken deliberate steps to train and developed around the listed officer corps, to promote get rid of ethical failures. We address them in ways that preserve the larger trust in the institution. Being transparent and accountable is part of this effort. By the time Senior Leaders are produced, they will have a Solid Foundation formed through years of experience, through the principles of ethical behavior and professional conduct. This will be reinforced and tested. As you have heard from our inspector general, we looked for traps. , we hope weevidence see Lessons Learned while we have ethical guidelines and rules to limit the consequences of this decisionmaking, rules alone are not what you and the American Public expect from us. You expect us to live up to Higher Standards of professional behavior. Along these lines centralal to our is to strengthen trust between our ranks, the institution, the American Public. I believe it strengthens our relationship with congress. Thank you for the opportunity to be transparent today. This topic is the foundation of our profession. Thank you for inviting me to here an honor to be with my vice chiefs. Of our 70s year of 46 of americas sons and daughters are in front of me. The backdrop of the capital behind them. That moment, i thought about what we owe those patriotic volunteers. In a word that came to mind was trust. View maintaining trust in confidence with the American Elements the essential of our past and future mission success. Its for that reason we deploy a critical contingent of learning. Emily operations of leadership, but in love and ethical standards. , seniorthose efforts oficers do break bonds trust. In those instances, we have robust systems of investigation and in cap accountability. I know we can speak to my fellow chiefs here. Our goal is for all airmen to do what is right at all times, regardless of the circumstances, and no matter the rank or the position. If they fall short of that goal, we will hold them accountable for their actions. Thanks for your continued leadership and partnership as we seek to achieve that goal, and by extension, maintain the trust of all airmen and American People. Chairman kaufman, breaking for thehere, thank you opportunity to appear and report to you on this important issue, more dutch moral and ethical conduct of our marine general officers. We know our nations citizens expect the best from our marines. They expect operational , both every on the battlefield and in their lives. We expect the same from ourselves. We accept this responsibility. Our core values guide our ethical conduct of every marine. Marines are custodians for these school that core values. This is a foundation of character and every marine, and it starts with them the family. Continued through our training, provided by our inspection programs, we have decisionmakers at every level of officer training. Ethical leadership as the foundation of leading marines. Over the last 10 years, marines have averaged 1. 5 cases per year of substantiated officer misconduct. Nearly half of them, the mistakes are administrative in nature. We had knowledge that there is always room to improve. We want to evolve our Education Training programs to ensure that the moral conduct of every marine is supported. We think the congress and subcommittee for the opportunity to discuss this issue. This remains the best military our nation requires and expects. I look forward to your questions. This, and ik appreciate an answer from the army navy, then air force and marine corps. Are familiar with the consequences of this. They are less familiar with some of the other administrative and that can beactions taken against service members. Could you explain the other options available to you when you disposing of senior missiles leader misconduct cases and the consequences thereof . If i could. Could. I we could do a memorandum concern , a memorandum of reprimand, but what really hurts an officer, is a general officer reprimanded we put in their official file. Basically ends their career as they go forward. As they go to retire, that is that judye board cates what rank they will retire as. Basically, you can lose 13 , depending out what rank you retire at, which is hundreds of thousands of dollars for some type of misconduct at that level. Yes, sir. I was going to mention a retirement determination progress process that is for any Senior Leader who has had a substantiated allegation that what we term, becomes adverse information to their record. We must do a board. We carry out that process. The determination for 12 stars is signed off by Senior Leaders in the navy. All services are at the secretary level. For 34 stars, determination must be approved by the secretary of defense. This. Me fully understand so that you give some sort of, some sort of letter that is , its a career killer. That person not going to get promoted. They may be able to finish out there to her of duty, on some level i suppose, be able to finish their career. Then, they go to retirement, and their review to determine whether or not theyre going to be doing regular time am i clear on that if at first, yes, sir. I only speak for the navy here if it is adverse, yes, sir. I only speak for the navy, but if an officer has substantiated allegations, they will not stay for the rest of their to her, will they be relieved of their command, duties, and asked to retire, then we go through the retirement great determination. So, somebody that you are going itslow to finish their a career killer, but youre going to let them finish their to her of duty . Not necessarily. Tour of duty . Not necessarily. General wilson . We have the same process. The same things apply. We have not determined whether they should serve in that job. In most cases, they have an article 15. If someone got a letter, was forced to retire, reduced in rank, and that retirement its the equivalent of a fine of hundreds of thousands of dollars, am i correct . Thats correct. Sir, we follow the same process. The one example i can give you, weeit it is 10 years old, had a two star, substantiated finding on him. He was retired. You can get a second star. He retires in 06. I did the calculation last night. If you compare his 06 retirement to an 08 retirement, what he lost in congress compensation is one thing i million dollars. Ok. 1. 9 million. Ok. Thank you for your conversations. I guess this question can be asked of you as well. Could you inform us by letter of how many courtmartials there officers eneral on general officers . The chairman just talked about the potential loss of rank, and loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars over ones lifetime in retirement, though they still keep their retirement. Im more interested in the value of a security clearance. Thats worth a lot of money. A whole lot more money than 200,000. These cases that have come before us, where they things that,d done you would question their moral turpitude, drunkenness, under normal circumstances, someone could in fact lose their security clearance. I wonder how many do lose their security clearance. Does anyone have any thoughts on that . If you dont, if you could provide that to us to the record, of these cases. We seen so much prominence, and we can provide them to you if you dont know them off the top of the ahead. Im curious how many lose their security clearance. Valuable, i think, than many of the things. Admiral, you talked about transparency in your opening remark. I think thats really important from the congressional oversight perspective. Discloseoes substantiated cases, but to my knowledge, there isnt any means by which each of your services would disclose, dukakis for instance, substantiated cases. Could you, each of you, and four months as to whether or not you would be supportive of that . This committee wants those cases, absolutely. Yes, maam. Yes, maam. No problem, mamma. Thank you. , the case has come up a number of times. Its probably the most egregious case in the history of, certainly the navy, if not the military in general. Because so many people are involved, and so many people corrupted by this individual, im stunned that there werent any bystanders that spoke up. , how did iton actually there were a number of cases investigated by nci s. They were overcharging for fuel, or the like that he was engaged in. In many many cases were dismissed. A postmortem of that, to look at where the holes within the chain of command, in terms of identifying the issues and addressing them . I hope you will respect this comment; its an ongoing federal investigation by the department of the u. S. Attorney. Very uncomfortable answering questions that could prejudice the case in any way. So, answering some of what you just asked could potentially cause us problems. When it is done and we are hopefully getting to the end of this when the files are turned over to us, we will do that. Theres a process in place to make sure that we evaluate every single case that comes to the navy. Whether they are handled by the department of justice or not, they come to us for final resolution. We cannot talk publicly about that until the department of justice is complete with their investigation. I appreciate that, and im butasking you to do that, from a policy standpoint, are there policies you recognize would be helpful in preventing exploding this from into scandals, that its hard to most issuesend revolve most issues revolved around contracting. We have taken a strong turn on the process by which we do that. Oversight intof how those contracts are issued, and who is issuing them. That sort of training and are supply core, and our general support core has been very strong over the last five years. We think that largely has helped us strive down the number of misconduct cases that have resulted outside of the scope of these cases. One last question. You think bystanders have a duty to report . A question for each of you. Absolutely. In every single case. We talk about this in Sexual Harassment training, Sexual Assault. Would call behaviors that are destructive in nature. Oftentimes, it can be quelled by a bystander. I completely agree. See something, say something. Thank you. If you are now recognized for five minutes. Thank you. I appreciate you being here and your leadership. I would like to go back to a question i asked the Previous Panel about the different spanks for different ranks. You think we are Holding People equally accountable in your view, but whether it is a midlevel nco, to a senior officer . Commanding general for three years, and courtmartial, irony handled a lot of the cases at the low level now. The chief of staff for the last we holdhs, i believe everyone appropriately accountable. We expect a higher standard of them. Both jim and i service partners. In every discipline or case, every single one that reaches the level of where we are trying to determine whether someone should retire early or without pay, so on and so forth, at least for active duty, we have seen everyone. As vice chiefs, we see them again. And we get to see them across the board. If we do not do this in a fair way, we are going to be held accountable. I agree with my counterparts. I would add that we hold our Senior Officers to an exceptionally high standard. We know we will be judged by that. As mike with my time at the vice chief. ,e will not have any problem any officer accountable. We will investigate and hold them accountable. I will add one thing. ,ur Senior Officers, one shot one shot near down. Perhaps on the junior ranks, which i to give them a second chance, at least its not a zero defect mentality. I appreciated Second Chances when i was 18 and 19. Me too. A rough hypothetical. We havethe issue is, someone who has served honorably , a one or two star, then you are a three star for 32, and they have a relationship or whatever, and you have to determine a retirement, deal the back to the two star are one start. One of the eight your point, they do something similar, how hard is that to determine . Is going back ranked to the 30year point or should it be more serious depending on the crime or action taken . How hard is that when you are making these determinations . Sometimes you go back to the last rank onhonorably served. If it is a junior rank, maybe she suffer a they suffer a careerending decision . I am curious. The great determination is a process that is in place for all of us. The reminder is, i dont care if it is a junior or senior marine, if the action is criminal, there is no rank involved. I can name that we have had one in the last five years. It was a senior officer, an 06. He is 0. He retires with no rank . He gets no retirement. He is in jail and he is zero. He has no rank at all. Any other comments . I would follow along with the comments. I agree. We have had two courtmartials. One i wont talk about right now, but they have been adjudicated over the last ten years and both officers were of criminal type nature. We will courtmartial them if they warrant that. We weigh every single case on its merits, looking at what the soldier or the officer has done over the many years and weigh it and put it together and try to do the right thing when it comes to making a decision on their future. Chairman, i yield back. You are now recognized for five minutes. Nang youthank you, mr. Chairman. How long are unsubstantiated reports kept . Do you know . I will start. Are we talking just Senior Officers, maam . Yes. Yes. We have other terms when we talk about investigations where there are substanceations and unsubstantiated but reportable. Reportable means it wasnt adverse, but it is still required by the senate for confirmation. It is a little bit different. Whats an example of something thats unsubstantiated but reportable . Lets say someone was accused of something. So many of these are fresh in my mind from a topic i am not at liberty to talk about. If it was you were out alleged to have gone to a dinner with a contractor and accepted that dinner and it was unsubstantiated, that it was accepted by you but it was alleged that you did attend a dinner with a contractor, that can be reportable but not so people going through an entire investigative process, they are cleared but in a nomination, even though they are cleared, it is reportable to the senate . The senate is entitled to any information on an officer being considered for promotion to the rank of 07 and above. That was kind of my line of questioning in the last session. It seemed like all the panelists say that unsubstantiated claims have never taken into account for jobs or rank. Now, i am hearing they are. Unsubstantiated claims are . They have to be accounted for but that doesnt prevent them from being promoted. Within the services, is there anywhere formally or informally in your process where you actually look at unsubstantiated 02 18 14 brad r. Wenstrup brad r. Wenstrup investigations as part of the process of considering someone for a rank . One of the things we look at is titling. We look at vetting an officer. We look at all the databases that come up to see. Ill give you an example. This did not hold up the officer. The officer was titled because his dog got loose in the neighborhood. The mps came by and titled him for having a loose dog in the neighborhood. He was substantiated for having the dog loose in the neighborhood. I am talking about where people are cleared. Are they somehow in any formal or informal process, are people looking at the files of their cleared allegations and cleared investigation as to whether they are going to offer them a new job or promotion . Do you see what im trying to get to . If you are innocent we dont do that. General wilson, sorry. General walters . No. We are required to report all the information to the senate. All information includes unsubstantiated claims . You have to report whether they were investigated in some cases. These are the rules that are set. We dont have a big stack in my office of all the unsubstantiated cases. Thats the legal review. They know what parameters the senate requires that goes in with the confirmation package. I sign off on those. It is usually a paragraph that says, we will look at this and no substanceations that will tell me more if they a