We all need to safety. We be safe and strong against , anda, china, north korea iran. You think we should give away all of our secrets, i feel sorry for your students read you are absolutely wrong. Host let us give him a chance to respond. Guest i said quite the opposite, there are secrets that need to be protected but we have to strike a balance and find out what information out there is in the Public Interest that doesnt need to get out to the public. I am glad you mentioned that, i did not want to give that impression. I, as a journalist, have been in times imposition of an information of information. There was a lot of information we did this close of an earlier event because we thought it would undermine sources and methods and damage the government possibility to fight terrorism. I am a big believer in spiking a balance. Striking a balance. I think there is an overclassification of information. The Obama Administration has created a task force to try to go through each Government Agency and eliminate excessive secrecy. Been successful in making 42 of the information less secret than it was before. They consider that an accomplishment. Host the name of the book is inside the pursuit and takedown 9 11eal nine 11 mastermind. Caller why couldnt our government send in an airplane for higher in the country to go in there and get mr. Snowden with spanishspeaking pilots . Host unfortunately we are out of time. Thank you for leaving our viewers. I need to go to a Senate Gallery where it Bipartisan Group of senators are about to announce coalitionort behind a of 34 senators to make changes to the military chain of command on the Sexual Assault issues. I want to thank all of the senators who have fought on this issue so hard. I want to thank senator ochsner for her work on this issue and been a tireless partner on this effort. On behalf of our brave members of the services. I also want to thank senator collins were standing firmly us. Us via firmly with i want to same want to thank senator fox or for her work in being an amazing advocate and unbelievable champion. I also want to thank senator blumenthal, kay hagan, and lee some housekeeping and lisa. Today i want to thank rand paul for being here, for deciding to take a leadership role on important issues, to really take this crisis headon. I also want to thank senator ted cruz for his very steadfast votes in the Armed Services committee and helping asleep this new amendment going forward. I think both of them i think both of them are going to add deeply to this extraordinary issue that needs radical leadership and bold action. I also want to thank senator grassley again for being the lead sponsor amongst the republicans with senator collins added that early leadership made all the difference in the world. Collins. That early leadership made all the difference in the world. Way we wanted and Sexual Assault in the military is create an independent, accountable military Justice System that that is not partisan or ideological. It can create the kind of accountability and trance parents he that our men and women who serve in the military need, so that they can receive justice. Our carefully crafted commonsense proposal was written in direct response to the what , whatctims told us happened to them, the fact they did not trust the chain of command, that they were becoming it did against, that they did not believe just as was possible. This is not a democratic idea, it is not a republican idea, it is a good year that meets the needs of the victims, creates transparency, accountability, and creates the needed objectivity that the deserves. Deserves. E issue we will now turn it over to senator grassley. Thank you. Be a part of this effort to build support for military justice improvement act. The status quo is not working. We need to shake it up. Thee do not crack down on culture that this Sexual Assault represents, if we do not crack down on the individuals who use Sexual Violence as a means of personal power and personal gain , then we will creatively great the to show problems then we will create institutional problems. The Bipartisan Legislation introduced by our path introduced by our colleague will give members of the Armed Services more confidence confidence in the military system of justice. To reform will do justice the United States military code of honor. It is based on integrity and infidelity to the rule of law. A lawassault is enforcement issue. When young adults make the commitment to serve their country in uniform and put themselves in harms way to protect and defend americas freedoms they deserve to know that their rights will be protected, including access to justice and not have that access to justice intervened i somebody by somebody who may short and see that justice is not delivered. Thank you. Thank you so much, senator. I am proud to be a part of this Bipartisan Coalition for change area and for change. Change has been coming for 21 years. I am here to say i have been in the senate for that long of a time and so has senator grassley. Everyw and we see secretary of defense call for zero tolerance on Sexual Assault in the military and every time nothing happens. Story thatell you a reflects why we have to do that. Stacy robinson joined the marines at 19 for every right to reason. She wanted to put her life on the line for her country. Out on a date by sergeant. He took her to a bar and drug her at the bar. He took her back to the barracks and he freaked her. Rapednd herape and he her. He dropped her on the ground at 4 a. M. None of those facts are indisputably at are in dispute. I want to tell you what happened to Stacy Robinson and what happened to her perpetrator. Sase stacy thompson. The perpetrator stayed in the chain of command. The chain of command suggested to the perpetrator he get his but out of the military in order to avoid any consequence whatsoever. Forstacy was investigated drug use from that night. After 10 or more years she is coming out to talk about this story, which has scarred her forever. Do we need change . Yes. What happened in the armed , with somemmittee good small tweaks to the system, the main change that was supported in the committee did not happen. I am going to close just showing you a couple of charts. In no particular order. Zero tolerance for Sexual Assault, statements by secretary hagel it is not to say we do not have a zero tolerance policy, we do. , wecretary leon panetta have absolutely no tolerance for any form of Sexual Assault. This really gets old. Very quickly. Secretary rumsfeld, Sexual Assault will not be tolerated. William cohen. Secretary william perry. This goes back to 1994. We have zero tolerance. 1989. Heney, it is enough with the words. It is enough with the empty promises. It is time for some real change area did real change. , i want you to remember that. 90 of Sexual Assault are not reported because they tell us that they will not reported because they do not want to see it in the chain of command. This is not something the senator pulled out of the air. Look at our allies. 98, outside the chain of command. Oscar elia, 2005, outside the chain of command. You knighted kingdom, 2006. Tell you thatone this is some idea that is out of the mainstream. The status quo is out of the mainstream. I can be tod as stand with the coalition like this and just make a statement. To our colleagues that are looking at us and deciding, please put your faith in change. Thank you. Sensor rand paul . I try not to look at issues from a partisan view. I am sure i do sometimes. I look at problems as i tried to find solutions. I am concerned about justice. Justice is very important to me, both for the accused and victim. I am concerned that victims of assault may be deterred from reporting their assault if they have to report it to their boss. I am also concerned about it imposing too many lawyers in the everyday life of the military and then getting in the way of the military mission. Of ourt majority soldiers are honorable and upstanding individuals. We are talking about a small percentage but if they commit crimes they should be punished. Inviting justice to the victims thomas to make sure there is due process for all to the victims, making sure there is due process for all. I think is is a great example of how people from both sides come together and are willing to work on a problem and look honestly at what the problem is. When i heard with this is when i heard about this my First Impression was a positive one. As i looked at the bill i asked the senators to talk about it with me. I thought there were one or two things that were included in this that we should not exclude from it for you from it. There were a couple of things that we removed that were not Sexual Assault, murder, these were disobeying orders and other things. We said we will still leave that in the line of command. We are going to keep serious crimes, murder, rape, out of here. Motive wasought the good for the bill but i think the bill is even stronger. I see no reason why conservatives should not support this. The only one thing i see standing in the way the only thing i see standing in the way is the status quo. If it appears as if there is some interesting victims reporting the crime, white dont we fix it . Why dont we fix it . Thank you. Sexual assault is a grave violation of the trust and to keep that we owe our servicemen and servicewomen. When our sons and daughters sign up to its sign up to serve this nation they willingly anticipate hostile fire from enemy forces. They do not sign up to potentially be subject to Sexual Assault. The Supreme Court rightly ascribedte as great as short short of murder the ultimate violation of self. As, short ofrape murder, the ultimate violation of self. I am convinced our commanders in the military want to sue this problem go away. They understand that they have heard the message and they are working to make it go away. Unfortunately this problem has persisted, despite goodfaith repeated efforts. Process byay the which this amendment has gone forward really underscores the way which the delivery underscores the way the deliberate rosses of the senate is supposed to work. I think there are good and reasonable arguments by the chairman of the committee and others about per serving the chain of command, keeping responsibility in the chain of command. Entering the Committee Hearing on decided, i was persuaded by senator jill brands exceptionally passionate advocacy. There are two points that ator jill a brand made senator gil brandt made. It is an unwillingness and inability to report these crimes. The victims of Sexual Assault, for what ever reason have consistently remained reluctant and afraid to come forward and there can be no deterrence if we do not have reporting of crimes. Despite all of the efforts that have been made in the past that senator gillibrand made a persuasive case, by having to go to your boss and raise the the crime, of Sexual Assault with your boss has proven, in fact, to be detouring victims from reporting their crimes. Secondly deterring victims from reporting their crimes. Havedly, our allies implemented policies similar to this and the results in practice been that reportedrapes practice was that reported rapes have been increased. We hope to improve reporting and improved deterrence. I am proud to stand with senator gillibrand. I appreciate their leadership. I am proud to see the Senate Working to fix this problem, to make sure that we protect every young man and woman who signs up to defend our nation and our liberties and to make sure that they have a save, secure environment were they can trust their fellow soldiers and the secure and be secure from any threat of Sexual Assault. You definitely see the political spectrum of greece political spectrum of support. I am proud to stand here not just with the colleagues here but there are others who are very much concerned and wanted to take some specific action related to drama in the military. This has been going on for far too long. There is no magic bullet. One of these answers is to remove the chain of command from making the decision to investigate and go forward. On the other hand, there are plenty of other things that we need to do because we are dealing with the culture and a military that has allowed this to occur for decades and decades are you the commander has a responsibility to change that culture. There are educational opportunities, there are all of these other things that can happen. The navy is doing some of this, starting in a small way where they address the incidents and use of alcohol, which is very much a part of these kinds of crimes. There are so many ways that we can address this. This is one very specific way that we believe will result in more of these crimes being reported. We think that is one of the first things that we have to i thank all of my colleagues and kristins leadership. I am very grateful for the leadership of everyone here and for the several other cosponsors we have 30 sponsors. We all know the military is home to the best and brightest in the world. Is such a small number of criminals in our military that are undermining good order and discipline. Those are the individuals we have to find. These cases must be prosecuted and they must be held accountable for you when we look at held accountable. When we look at this issue we have to look through the eyes of the victim. That is what matters most. For 62 who reported the crimes of the 3300 that were reported last year, 62 said they were retaliated against because they reported the crime. Of the 23,000 that did not report, they did not think anything would be done. Said it reports it because it fears retaliation. That is why this kind of reform is so important, to be able to have that objective military prosecutor become the decision maker. Theres less hope of of accountability and a greater belief that justice can be done. Ist is what this change trying to accomplish. I am going to read the story of one survivor to leave you with. You have to imagine these crimes happening to your son or daughter. Of the victims are male in these cases. One mother said, she did not want to diebold her daughters name, i supported my daughter going into the army. Next year she may be a casualty victim by some foreign enemy. Be aer imagined she would victim on u. S. Soil from the very army she partnered with to protect the United States and our right. She was sexually assaulted in the end of 2012, which is a case that instills pending. Batch that is still pending. She has become dependent on drugs and now she is being pushed out of the army. He has a revictimized her emotionally by exposing her to unsafe conditions, verbal abuse, and total disregard for her as a soldier and a woman. That is what we are here to do. I want to thank all of my supporters behind me but also all of those that are not here. We have to answer the call of these victims. Senator . Senator leventhal said that the proposal to move these decisions up the first chain of command will take care of the problem of retaliation. I disagree with that assessment. I believe he is putting forward his best effort on what he thinks will make a difference. The reason i think that change does not do enough is because of this, right now the commanders are putting forward cases that are reported and their attorneys are suggesting to be prosecuted. Even if the prosecutors is insured. You are starting with 26,000 at only 300 are going to trial. The commander and his lawyer always disagreed one percent of the time. That is one percent of 300 cases. It is a handful. Our problem is not the disagreement between a commander and a lawyer. Our problem is what general amos says. They do not trust the chain of command. If they do not trust the chain of command. Trust the chain of command they will report these cases. If they witnessed people being shocked out of the military because they reported these crimes, they will not trust the system that the chain of command has put into place. Our only hope is by making the system more objective that it is not object if it is not dependent on that judgment, that decision by the commander, they will have hope and confidence. Training is essential because these prosecutors are trained for Sexual Assault and military. That Sexual Assault and rape in the military. They know how the perpetrators are, they know how the pressure is put on the victim. They know the law and whether they can win these cases. I want that trained military prosecutor. The lenders will have the determination that we saw in the last hearing. Every commander is going to understand that the rate is a serious and Violent Crime of domination, not even related to dating or romance. You need somebody who is trained and knowledgeable to make the assessment about whether these cases should go to trial. The greatest success of objectivity they have done some good things which we support you in which we have supported keeping in the bill. Sometimes people think what we do is take the whole thing outside of the military. Ere are some people who want that but we do not go that route at all. We keep them in the military but with people who know exactly what they are doing. Prosecutors and our objective. It is an important point to make. I would like to invite senator blumenthal. Let let me thank senator jill brand senator hillebrand senator gillibrand. Measures will greatly enhance the credibility and trust in the system, which is critical to reporting. None is more important than the forshe is championing separating the convening authority from the command chain. I am very encouraged by the support that we are amassing. I see it in the response among my colleagues from both sides of the aisle. I think we are making inroads all across the senate, including on the Armed Services comm