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Don’t have to. I am a former JAG officer.

As far as I am aware, having been out for more than 10 years, the only ways that an officer can drop a rank are the following:

a. Getting a promotion pulled BEFORE pinning on the rank (but in which case she would never have been a “Lt Col”, so it would not have been a demotion) or

b. Being retired in a lower rank due to misconduct at the highest rank held (ie the last rank in which she served honorably was the rank of Major, the affair and misconduct with classified intel occuring when she was a Lt Col);

I suspect that “b” is what happened here, but that is not a “demotion” or a “reduction in rank”. Those can only be meted out to enlisted NCOs, who are thereafter allowed to remain on active duty.

You cannot demote an officer and allow them to remain on active duty; you can only retire them at a rank lower than the higest rank held because of misconduct occuring during the time the higher rank was held. technically this is called being retired “at the highest rank honorably held”, whcih in this gal’s case was aparently the rank of “Major”.

I know I am being technical here, but (channeling Dr McCoy): “I was a JAG, dammit”. ;>)