Army National Guard

Mar 22, 2023

William 4 mins ago 151 Among the Air Force veterans whose records have been turned over to Due Diligence are representatives. and Zach Nunn (R-Iowa), who both urged their parties to investigate more broadly whether the requests for their records constituted illegal activity. Speaker Kevin McCarthy said this week that he expects House Republicans to continue pressing the issue now that the affected candidates are known. Among the Air Force veterans whose records have been released to Due Diligence is Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb. ), who has urged his party to investigate more broadly to find out if the requests for their records constituted an illegal activity. | Nati Harnik/AP Photo “It’s not going to go away quietly,” he said in an interview Monday at the House GOP retreat in Orlando, Florida. “It wasn’t about one person. It was all these Republicans running around. We’ll just have to not suppress it, (but) watch to see if it happened elsewhere. In addition to Bacon and Nunn, the previously reported GOP Air Force veterans whose records have been released are Jennifer-Ruth Green, an Indiana candidate who challenged the Democratic representative. Frank Mvran (D-Ind.) last year; Sam Peters, who hired Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) in November, and Kevin Dellicker, who fell short in the GOP primary race last year to challenge Rep. wild susan (D-Pa.). The military branch launched its internal audit of records disclosures by its personnel center after POLITICO reported on Green’s records in October. POLITICO was told by the person who gave it Green’s military records that they were obtained through a public records request. POLITICO reviewed the request for the records made by a third party, which requested a “publicly releasable/redacted copy of the OMPF (Official Military Personnel Record) pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act statutes.” The requester indicated that the subject matter of the request was “benefits”, “employment” and “other”. The Air Force letter to House committee chairs did not name the four people, all outside elective office and who did not seek election in the last cycle, whose records were “published without permission” by them. Management noted only that two of these four non-candidates had their records requested by Due Diligence Group. An Air Force spokesperson confirmed the authenticity of the letter to lawmakers and said the names of the four individuals affected by the releases who were not running for congressional office in 2022 “are not being disclosed. to protect their privacy.” Due Diligence did not respond to requests for comment. Payton, whom POLITICO attempted to reach at an email address linked to the company, did not respond to a request for comment. Several Republican lawmakers have urged the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to publicly address any role it may have played in the military records requests. According to Federal Election Commission records, the DCCC paid just over $110,000 to due diligence between January 2021 and December 2022 and the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee paid just over $172,000 to due diligence. reasonable during this period. representing Richard Hudson (RN.C. ), chairman of the Republican National Committee of Congress, said in an interview that the DCCC “should disavow this activity if they don’t want to be a part of it.” Philip Letsou, spokesman for the Republican National Senate Committee, said: “Senate Democrats should explain why they continue to pay an opposition research firm known to have illegally obtained veterans’ military records.” House Democratic campaign arm executive director Julie Merz said in a statement for this story: “Requests for public records are an integral part of the research process. Republican and Democratic campaigns and organizations file hundreds of information requests with government agencies each cycle. Merz called it “the height of hypocrisy for MAGA Republicans to use the pretense of a congressional investigation into (sic) mistakes the US Air Force has publicly admitted to targeting their political opponents.” The DSCC did not respond to a request for comment. The official military personnel records of Majewski, Peters, Bremer and Green were improperly disclosed to due diligence, according to the Air Force. In the cases of Bacon, Nunn, Majewski, Dellicker and Peters, the branch’s active duty release or discharge certificate – known as “DD Form 214” – was given to the outside company. The Air Force letter said a separate National Guard-related form, known as “NGB Form 22,” had also been issued for Nunn. Majewski said in an interview last month that he believed an inappropriate release of his records had occurred before an Associated Press report last year outlining his inaccuracies about his military background. He said in a statement that he was “disappointed and disillusioned with the Air Force’s poor administrative processes.” “To date, I have not received any communication from them regarding my records,” Majewski added. “In fact, it was me who identified that my records were inappropriately released.” Bremer joined Majewski in expressing his disappointment with the Air Force’s handling of the case and said that, contrary to the Air Force’s letter to House lawmakers, they never received official notification that their records had been published without their approval. “(T)he fact that I learned this from the media rather than the Air Force is completely inappropriate,” Bremer said in a statement. “Our service member records must be properly kept confidential in accordance with the law.” The Air Force letter to GOP lawmakers says Bremer and Majewski separately received “written notification” of the inappropriate disclosures early last month. Further, the Air Force letter states that despite releasing the records of the 11 individuals “without proper authorization”, a review by its office of the group’s FOIA director of information due diligence between 2021 and the start of of 2023 found no identifiable people. the information “was disclosed inappropriately”. In addition to the committees of Rogers and Comer, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) is also reviewing document releases through its Judiciary Committee’s subgroup on the politicization of the federal government. The Air Force letter sought to answer questions from House Republicans about its regulations governing requests for information and related releases of service member records; its investigation process if information protected by federal law is potentially improperly disclosed; and how it changed its information protection procedures following the publications. The branch told lawmakers it had taken internal administrative steps to deal with the release of the records, providing no further details and saying an “Air Force Office of Special Investigations review is ongoing.” “. Rogers and Comer continue to seek information from other military branches regarding the due diligence group’s efforts to obtain military records, following a report by POLITICO that the company also sought to obtain military records. records for at least one other Army National Guard GOP nominee. Politico Not all news on the site expresses the point of view of the site, but we transmit this news automatically and translate it through programmatic technology on the site and not from a human editor. William 4 mins ago