Monday, January 22, 2018

Does Chelsea Manning's run for the Senate violate the UCMJ?

The Daily Caller reports here on whether Chelsea Manning's candidacy for the U.S. Senate violates a DoD punitive regulation and could therefore lead to disciplinary action under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Victor M. Hansen, a retired Army judge advocate who teaches at New England Law, comments
. . . that Manning’s run for office is legally prohibited and could result in prosecution.

“It’s prohibited for the obvious reason that you don’t want someone serving two masters on active-duty,” Hansen stated. “But in Manning’s case, it’s less of a concern, because she’s on excess leave – she has less connection with the military than GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham did when he was an Air Force reserve judge advocate general and certainly less than Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster does while serving as national security adviser to Donald Trump.”
*   *   * 
According to Hansen, the Army likely wants the issue of Manning to fade away from the public spotlight rather than having a commander take the time to open an investigation.
Query: is the Defense Department's political candidacy regulation unconstitutional as applied?

No comments:

Post a Comment

Comments are subject to moderation and must be submitted under your real name. Anonymous comments will not be posted (even though the form seems to permit them).