Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign hasn’t yet been derailed by reports of classified mail on her private email server, but a Marine is finding out the hard way that he won’t be granted the same leeway.
Marine Reserves Major Jason Brezler, who has deployed four times, faces discharge for sending a classified report warning others in Afghanistan of the danger posed by Sarwan Jan, a notoriously corrupt district police chief known for trafficking drugs and weapons and suspected of being a “systematic child rapist,” The Daily Beast reports. Brezler filed a suit in December to fight back, saying the board of inquiry which recommended his discharge violated due process rights because the transcript, which two generals used to make the final decision, was riddled with errors and mangled almost beyond recognition.
While serving in Afghanistan, Brezler and Marine Maj. Andrew Terrell gave testimony to Marine intelligence officer Larissa Mihalisko, who initially wrote the classified report on Jan’s activities. After much pressuring, the unbelievable happened. The provincial governor actually removed Jan from his position as police chief.
Soon after, Brezler moved to New York City and started work in the fire department, deciding to also stay on as a Marine reservist. That’s when he received an email to his personal account from Terrell, who said that his friend in Afghanistan had run into Jan and wanted to know more about his background.
Without thinking, Brezler fired over a copy of the classified report he still had on his hard drive to the Marine in Afghanistan that Terrell had mentioned.
The Marine then responded that Brezler had just sent him a classified document from a personal email account, which is a violation of protocol.
Brezler, realizing the obvious, reported himself and received a reprimand. Just two weeks later, Brezler found out that one of Jan’s suspected sex slaves, a 17-year-old, used an AK-47 to kill three Marines at the Helmand Province military base in Afghanistan. Brezler’s security indiscretion would probably have gone largely unnoticed, but Brezler soon realized that there was no investigation at all regarding why no one took the report seriously and acted on it.
As Brezler described in court papers, “Nevertheless, no Marine commanders were ever disciplined for allowing Jan to assume a command on FOB Delhi, allowing him to bring an entourage of chai boys onto FOB Delhi, or failing to take any steps to protect Marines on FOB Delhi from the danger Jan posed.”
“Chai boy” is a euphemism for young, male sex slaves. Jan was suspected of also running a child kidnapping ring, and at the time of the shooting, he had brought nine of them with him to the base.
The Department of Defense clearly didn’t want anyone asking more questions, forcing the family of one of the dead Marines to sue the DOD in late 2014 for refusing to release details about the incident to which they were entitled. (RELATED: Family Sues DOD For Cover-Up After Alleged Afghan Sex Slave Kills Marine)
Brezler is convinced that he wound up in front of a board of inquiry because he poked his nose in the wrong places.
A board of inquiry recommended a discharge at the end of 2013, but Navy Secretary Ray Mabus has not yet signed off on the recommendation. In late July, GOP Reps. Daniel Donovan, Christopher Gibson, Peter King and Tom Reed sent a letter to President Barack Obama, urging him to launch an independent investigation of unlawful retaliation against Brezler.
The next hearing in Brezler’s case is scheduled for September.
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