A mid shipmen was found not guilty of sexual assault while a brigadier general was fined and spared any jail time, despite admissions of several violations of military rules including adultery, relationships with subordinates, disobeying a commander s order and misusing a government credit card to trips to see the woman in question. the case was only the third time an army general of that sort has faced a court-martial in 60 years. while that kind of enforcement may be rare, the crimes against female service members are not. over 26,000 service members say they experienced unwanted sexual contact in 2012 alone. and that, as you see up there on the screen is according to the pentagon s own figures. last week, the senate did pass legislation from claire mccaskill who establish new rules on how victims and defendants can be treated and that bill removed the ability of defendants accused of sexual misconduct to invoke something called the good soldier defense. but senator gillebrand s bill
Their own. we ve got to reform the system if we re going to change these type of dismal results. yeah. and let me bring from senator gillebrand s proposal and many of our viewers have seen her on several showers discussing this issue. she says this illustrates a military justice system in dire need of independence from the chain of command. it s not only the right thing to do for men and women in uniform but would also mitigate undue command influence that we ve seen when survivors and defense attorneys both agree we need to reform the system, it should tell us the system needs reform. let me just briefly say for folks who are learning about this, undo command influence is simply the idea that when the president or other commanders mention that they want, for example, justice for victims of sexual assault, that can actually be invoked within the military courts as a reason to alter or dismisa case. that s just one piece of this. the other taking it out to more independent courts. what do you think could be the benefit of that approach?
Which is considered much stronger, that bill has still continued to be denied a floor vote. in fact, 55 senators backed it in early march. but it was still filibustered by a minority of 34 republicans and 10 democrats as well as one independent. joining us now is susan burke, the attorney who represented so many survivors of military sexual assault, featured in the bottom tear. thanks for joining us. thank you for having me. when you listen to these cases what do they tell you about the need for further reforms? well, they tem us the military cannot effectively prosecute rape and sexual assault. they re not good at policing their own. we ve got to reform the system if we re going to change these type of dismal results. yeah. and let me bring from senator gillebrand s proposal and many of our viewers have seen her on several showers discussing this issue.
Rules on how victims and defendants can be treated and that bill removed the ability of defendants accused of sexual misconduct to invoke something called the good soldier defense. but senator gillebrand s bill which is considered much stronger, that bill has still continued to be denied a floor vote. in fact, 55 senators backed it in early march. but it was still filibustered by a minority of 34 republicans and 10 democrats as well as one independent. joining us now is susan burke, the attorney who represented so many survivors of military sexual assault, featured in the bottom tear. thanks for joining us. thank you for having me. when you listen to these cases what do they tell you about the need for further reforms? well, they tem us the military cannot effectively prosecute rape and sexual assault. they re not good at policing
Charlie rangel is facing these extraordinary ethics charges on capitol hill. and for if you were a politician and you were running for office, to be linked to a guy who could potentially, you know, in a sentence until proven guilty, there s a lot of evidence against him. he s box office poison. they re not showing up. bloomberg said yeah, i ll be there. here s the ones who officially have confirmed. senator gillebrand, bloomberg, nadler, quinn and governor paterson but cuomo still on the fence and you have anthony weiner who is defending a number of his democrat allies who said, look, august is a very busy time. i can understand why people wouldn t be able to go and then the new york times. he can t go. they asked can you go? you know, i m busy. get back to me on that. here s the thing. on the invitation the clintons who aren t going. they ve had at least one major event. during the video invitation hailing charlie rangel and also, i think this is horrible. this congressman who has been there for years, has helped all