The data battle continues

Protect Our Defenders is standing its ground on its claim that Congress was misled about sexual assault data in 2013 by then-Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. James Winnefeld. The organization's May 27, 2016 response to Secretary of Defense Ashton B. Carter's May 26, 2016 letter on the matter can be found here. Excerpt:

Contrary to what was claimed by Adm. Winnefeld in his testimony and suggested in his follow up letter, the records DoD provided clearly show that, in many of these cases, civilian prosecutors did not “refuse” to prosecute the case. Furthermore, neither the case documents provided to POD nor the DoD’s latest response show any evidence to indicate any commander ever “insisted” a case go to trial. The DoD response’s allegation that POD did not have sufficient information to evaluate Adm. Winnefeld’s testimony is simply not true. The burden of proof remains on the DoD to demonstrate the veracity of Adm. Winnefeld’s claims, and they have provided no additional information to contradict POD’s and the AP’s analysis.

At issue, ultimately, is whether the time has come to jettison the remaining commander-centric features of the military justice system the United States inherited from George III.