Two House committee chairs are asking the Defense Department for more information on the military records of congressional candidate that were released last year without their consent shortly before the midterm election.
Reps. James Comer (R-Ky.) of the Oversight Committee and Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), of the Armed Services Committee sent a Thursday letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin requesting documents and answers regarding the unauthorised releases.
They claimed that the previous response by Frank Kendall, Air Force Secretary, was inadequate.
“This response is unresponsive, late and threadbare. They wrote that it omits clearly pertinent information about nature of requests that led to improper releases of records of servicemembers. “We have not heard from any other service about this matter.”
Rogers and Comer requested a list of candidates for Congress and the people elected to Congress between Jan. 1, 2021 and Jan. 3, 2023. No records were released without their consent.
They also wanted to know the identities of all those involved in the approval process and details on any punitive actions taken against them.
The Pentagon did not respond to the letter.
Politico publishedon Jennifer-Ruth Green’s military records in October. Green was a Republican who unsuccessfully ran to be a House member from Indiana. Green was allegedly sexually assaulted while serving in Iraq. This story also included a detail. According to a report by The Hill at that time, which included a statement by an Air Force spokesperson, the Air Force later admitted the wrong release of the information.
Comer and Rogers made a joint statement last Wednesday in which they stated that the Defense Department “failed to safeguard the private information of servicemembers”. They also called for responses from the other services following the revelations by the Air Force that more candidates were affected.
Rogers and Comer wrote the letter following sensitive personal information of some members of Congress being posted online in the wake of a ” significant Data Breach” at DC Health Link, Washington’s health insurance marketplace.
