Posted on 03/29/2017 6:28:22 AM PDT by MarvinStinson
Army Staff Sgt. Ricardo Branch is set to lose his job after emailing classified information in 2014 that former President Barack Obama revealed during a publicized speech in 2011.
The incident occurred in February 2014, when Branch, then a public affairs officer for the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR), reviewed a proposed article by Boeing for the company's internal news service, the Washington Times reported Sunday.
The article discussed SOAR personnel visiting a Boeing unit in Mesa, Arizona, and revealed the regiment's role in transporting Navy SEAL Team 6 to Pakistan for the 2011 raid to kill Osama bin Laden. Branch reportedly recognized that the Pentagon had never officially acknowledged SOAR's role in the bin Laden operation and emailed his superior saying Boeing should delete the sentence.
Branch also wrote the sentence in an official .mil email.
Because Branch forwarded the sentence, which contained sensitive information, in an unclassified email, an investigation was launched and he was ordered home.
A superior officer had seen the email and notified Army intelligence. About two months later, Branch agreed to a nonjudicial punishment known as an Article 15 hearing, during which he received an oral reprimand and thought the matter was done.
The Army transferred Branch to South Korea. But then the service in 2015, pressured by budget cuts, sought to reduce personnel and identified blemished soldiers through the Quantitative Management Program. Branch was identified as a blemished soldier because his Article 15 resulted in a one-time poor performance evaluation, and the investigation was relaunched.
Branch received high marks on all prior and subsequent performance reviews, according to the Times.
Branch appealed to the Army Board for Correction of Military Records to nullify his single bad performance mark, but the board twice refused. The sergeant was desperate and went public, appearing on the Fox TV station in El Paso, Texas to tell his story.
The Criminal Investigation Command then launched a probe into Branch and cleared him of wrongdoing, but that ended his service extension.
Branch, who is now stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas, has just over a week to persuade the Army to change its decision or he will lose his career. On Friday, Branch's commanding officer handed him a "counseling letter" that permanently revoked his security clearance and "served as his termination notice," the Times reported.
Branch is being punished for emailing in 2014 the same sensitive information that Obama revealed three years earlier in a publicized speech.
Obama and former Vice President Joe Biden discussed SOAR's connection to the bin Laden raid in 2011, days after the operation, when they visited Fort Campbell, Kentucky and personally thanked the "Night Stalkers," in private, for their role. The Army subsequently published a story on the meeting on its website, Army.mil.
Another article from May 9, 2011, an Army New Service Story published on Army.mil, reported on the Obama visit.
"It was the Night Stalkers who are credited with flying the mission in Pakistan that transported the Navy's ‘Seal Team 6' on an operation that resulted in the capture and kill of terrorist Osama bin Laden," the story said.
Branch told the Times that the military service "doesn't want to take responsibility" for Obama's prior remarks on the sensitive information in question.
"The Army just doesn't want to take responsibility for the fact that Obama told 2,000-plus Fort Campbell soldiers in a public forum after the private meeting with SOAR," Branch said.
"In 2011 it was on the Army home page," he added. "It makes no sense to dismiss me from service. Policy dictates that anything published on the Army home page has to be properly vetted through various organizations. Obama visiting Campbell and talking about the bin Laden raid is considered mission and operational security info, [which] means it has to get vetted. It's still on the home page today."
The Times noted that Branch's actions were "far less serious" than former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of an unsecured private email server to communicate sensitive information.
bmp
What a crock!
This was already revealed by the CIC. Sergeant Branch is being scapegoated or sacrificed for some reason, probably patriotism.
Mattis and even the current CIC should step in. Obama may be gone, but many, many traitors remain.
So he was doing his job and the Obamanista military commanders decided to take him down. Good job! Arbitrary and capricious has come to dominate our senior military commanders.
He is getting discharged after NJP for sending one message containing classified info on an unclassified .mil system. What consequences should one receive for sending hundreds of Secret and TS/SCI messages to a public, unsecured system as Clinton undeniably did?
If the information is classified then the sergeant broke the law. Just because Bathhouse Barry broke the law is no reason for others to follow suit without consequences.
The problem with this guy isn’t what he did with the info, the problem is that he went on TV to whine about what he thought was unfair treatment - that flies in the face of chain of command and is a threat to good order and discipline.
Soldiers in those units are told again and again that they are not to confirm or deny anything. And being from a helicopter unit, this SSG should be much more sensitive. There is nothing quite as vulnerable as a helicopter when its tactics and techniques become known.
Anything in the public arena should never be commented on at all.
Feel bad for the SSG, but I’m positive he knew the rules.
As president, Obama could declassify information at will.
Obama de facto declassified that information by using it in a public speech.
We just have Dumbo’s word for it we got him, no DNA, no pics. Thus no public proof. Maybe some buried in the CIA vaults no one will ever see even with FOIA. Marked EYES ONLY NEED TO KNOW.
And they buried the body deep in the ocean, so no martyr site could be made of it. That was the only intelligent thing DUMBO did in his whole 8 yrs.
Anyone who thinks that the Government is for the People [serfs] over the last few decades is divorced from reality. Hillary Clinton, Lois Learner, Anthony Weiner, the Head of the IRS, who, by the way still holds that position, serve as prime examples. They do as they please with no fear that the law enforcement officials will ever bring them to account for their misdeeds, a/k/a, crimes. There are people who are serving prison sentences that have done less than Hillary Clinton. Yet, instead of being in prison, or better yet, hanged by the neck until she is dead, she was a major political party's candidate for President. Should you send a underage girl a picture of your pecker, you would never get out of jail. Yet Anthony Weiner is running free today.
Perhaps a sympathetic elected official will review this case and find a way to de-classify the specific information which the previous-CiC revealed during a publicized speech in 2011. . . thereby eliminating the impetus for this discharge.
That is how it works in the military. They are not allowed to reveal things, even things that have been released by others or media. The military is very specific about that point, just because something or part of something is known does not mean they can confirm, deny, or discuss it.
Works for me.
w, ping....
BUT... according to Comey, Clinton didn't intend to break the law.
So much BS. Of course it was 160th SOAR. That’s what they do and they are damned good at it.
since the information was previously released to the public by the POTUS, it was no longer classified.........
Active Duty ping.
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