Fix Our Military “Justice” System! | R. Davis Younts - S.O.S. #227

Justice should not depend on who’s most afraid of a headline. We sit down with nationally recognized trial lawyer and former Air Force JAG Davis Younts to examine where military justice goes off the rails—and how to bring it back on track. Davis shares the moment a 15‑minute acquittal at the Air Force Academy changed his career path from prosecution to defense, revealing what happens when allegations gain momentum and no one can find the off‑ramp.

We dig into the uneasy balance between command authority and legal oversight, why the Office of Special Trial Counsel (OSTC) is slowing cases while pulling commanders away from discipline, and how political risk trains leaders to push weak cases to court rather than make hard calls. You’ll hear specific, practical fixes: raising the evidentiary bar to open administrative investigations, creating an affirmative defense for leaders who are strictly enforcing published standards, and finally training investigating officers to recognize bias, weigh credibility, and document decisions with rigor.

On the UCMJ side, Davis makes the case to restore Article 32 preliminary hearings as a real evidentiary gate that protects true victims from re‑traumatization and the innocent from trials doomed by thin evidence. We also spotlight the “titling” trap—when simply being investigated can plant a damaging FBI record without charges or notice—along with common‑sense safeguards like notification and appeals. The through line is standards: physical readiness, professional conduct online, and the moral clarity to seek peace through strength without rewarding victimhood or punishing honest leadership.

If you care about due process, warrior ethos, and a military that can command trust at home and deterrence abroad, this conversation is for you. Listen, share with a teammate, and tell us where you think reform should start. And if this resonates, follow the show, leave a review, and pass it to someone who needs to hear it.

🔗 Connect with Davis: https://yountslaw.com/

Chapters

• 0:00 Opening & Guest Introduction
• 2:05 From Prosecutor to Defense Advocate
• 6:15 Academy Cases and a 15‑Minute Acquittal
• 10:45 Command Authority vs. Legal Oversight
• 15:30 OSTC: Promise, Politics, and Delays
• 19:40 The Career Risk of Saying “No”
• 23:55 False Allegations and Real Victims
• 28:30 Administrative Investigations as Punishment
• 33:40 Weaponized Complaints and Zero‑Defect Culture
• 39:20 Standards, Fitness, and Warrior Ethos
• 44:30 Fixing Admin Processes: Evidence and Defenses
• 50:05 Training Investigating Officers
• 54:20 UCMJ Reforms: Restore Article 32
• 58:40 “Titling” and Hidden FBI Records
• 1:03:20 Conviction Pressure and Rollbacks
• 1:07:10 Case Reviews and Integrity Units
• 1:11:00 Closing, Resources, and Upcoming Shows

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Good evening, everyone. And due process is something that you guys know I talk a lot about because I feel, as so do so many of us advocates, feel, that the military justice system is in desperate need of reform. I mean, you can guys can just go down all my shows, like the last six shows, and you will see case after case after case. And you know what? I'm not going to stop talking about it. And today I have someone amazing to talk about it with. Davis, how are you doing today?

SPEAKER_03: 0:31

I'm doing great.

SPEAKER_01: 0:32

Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on the Stories of Service podcast. Ordinary people to who do extraordinary work. I'm the host of Stories of Service, Teresa Carpenter. And as I always do, to get these shows started, I will do an intro from my father, Charlie Pickard.

SPEAKER_00: 0:48

From the moment we're born and lock eyes with our parents, we are inspiring others. By showing up as a vessel of service, we not only help others, we help ourselves. Welcome to SOS Stories of Service, hosted by Teresa Carpenter, here from ordinary people from all walks of life who have transformed their communities by performing extraordinary work.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13

And our Davis Yaunts is a nationally recognized trial lawyer, former Air Force JAG, and advocate for reforming the due process system. With experience spanning more than 200 court martials, court martial and thousands of military investigations, Davis brings a unique perspective from both sides of the courtroom as a prosecutor and as the Air Force's top-ranked senior defense counsel. Today he's going to share why he turned down prestigious government roles to remain a defense attorney and how his career has shaped his commitment to justice, religious freedom, and protecting the rights of the accused. As you know, I'm very passionate about that. His insights shine a light on systemic issues in military and civilian courts, and he offers bold ideas for ensuring due process is respected in every case. Welcome again, Davis.

SPEAKER_03: 1:58

Hey, thank you. I really appreciate the opportunity to be with you, and uh I'm looking forward to this discussion.

SPEAKER_01: 2:04

Oh, so am I. So, first off, as I always ask all my guests, where were you born and raised, and what made you decide to join the Air Force?

SPEAKER_03: 2:13

Yeah, so I was uh born in Oregon, um, grew up all over, actually learned how to talk in a small town in Mississippi, and then uh graduated from high school in Marshall, Michigan. So kind of all over the United States growing up. Um, I was in law school um when 9-11 happened. So kind of from a young age, I was very passionate about the law. My parents dealt with some legal issues trying to advocate for religious freedom and homeschool freedom when I was young. And so that got me to law school. And 9-11 happened when I was in law school. And and for me, um, maybe I was naive in some respects at that time. I was kind of a true believer, but I felt like, hey, the country, my country needed people to serve. And so uh as soon as I graduated from law school, um, I joined the Air Force Jag Corps, and that's how I began my military service.

SPEAKER_01: 3:05

That's awesome. So you were homeschooled, you come from a faith-based background. Where in Mississippi were where did you grow up?

SPEAKER_03: 3:13

So I was uh for five years in Nesbitt, Mississippi, which is a small town just south of Memphis. And from there we actually moved to Pennsylvania and I spent some time growing up in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

SPEAKER_01: 3:24

Awesome, awesome. I'm I'm actually um spending part of my time in the deep south these days. So I I very much appreciate uh the Southern lifestyle, and it's of quite the change from military uh life on the West Coast or or Norfolk, but uh definitely enjoy the people, the culture, the political freedoms, food, food, I mean every the prices, I mean, everything is is is wonderful around here. So I'm I'm I'm very, very content. So tell me a little bit about um what was it about the legal profession that you were drawn to?

SPEAKER_03: 4:02

You know, if if I'm gonna be honest, I I didn't really know what I wanted to do in law. I just thought, you know, I wanted to be involved in government or politics or something else. And I thought, wow, you know, all these politicians, all these legislators have a law degree. So I thought maybe that's uh where I'm gonna head. And then just as I kind of matured and went to law school, I really thought I was gonna be a lifelong prosecutor. I thought that's what the good guys did. I thought that's what the people who, you know, woke up in the morning ready to seek justice did. So I wanted to put on the white hat and I wanted to be, you know, I wanted to be that prosecutor, put the bad guys away. So that's all I really wanted to do. That's all I really wanted to do in the military. Um, that's what I was passionate about during law school.

SPEAKER_01: 4:45

And that's what you started off doing as an Air Force JAG, correct?

SPEAKER_03: 4:49

That's right. I was a prosecutor at um what was then Lackland Air Force Base, now part of Joint Base San Antonio. And then I was actually a prosecutor at the Air Force Academy as well. So I had I did over 40 court martials as a prosecutor at Lackland in my first year and a half in the Air Force.

SPEAKER_01: 5:06

So during that time, as you were a prosecutor, did you start to see some fissures in the system, even from your perspective, even though you were out to win and get prosecutions, did you start to see from the defense side that there might be people who were getting caught up in the system that shouldn't be there?

SPEAKER_03: 5:24

You know, I I think you know, uh for folks that listen to your podcast, I know they're familiar with the military justice system, but there's just some really interesting and unique aspects of the military justice system. So one of the things I I started running up against as a prosecutor is just as a prosecutor, you want to be able to do what's ethical, what's moral, what's right, and you want to have discretion. And I didn't really feel like I had a lot of discretion always as a prosecutor within the military. Now, I never took a case forward that I didn't believe um it was appropriate to take uh forward. But even as a young Jag, as a young prosecutor, there were cases that I said no to. There was cases I pushed back on that I didn't think were appropriate to take to trial that I caught heat for very early on in my career. Um, now I was very good. I mean, I will say this, I was very effective at what I did. And so I think in some respects, uh, because of my skill set, I it didn't hamper my career initially to take that perspective. But I really didn't want to be a defense counsel, even though I started to see some of those concerns. But then as I got to the Air Force Academy, and you know, we're talking about a timeframe at the Air Force Academy, um, 2006 timeframe. And what happened at the Air Force Academy is there were a lot of allegations that cases, particularly sexual assault cases, were getting covered up. They weren't being prosecuted, files were being hidden, people weren't doing their job. I got there kind of after that controversy, but we literally saw it go for full circle, where uh, you know, the allegation was no cases were being taken to trial. And it reached a point where the last I wasn't involved in the case because I was transitioning from being a prosecutor to a defense counsel, but I observed a court-martial at the Air Force Academy where um the complainting witness admitted that she didn't realize that she had been raped or sexually assaulted until she watched some movies on the Lifetime uh movie network. And she decided, she decided uh, because of a similar story that happened there, that what had happened to her was was actually rape. Um now it came out there were other things about that, there were reasons why she was falsifying her story. And the jury came back in 15 minutes and acquitted um this young cadet, right? And but that to me was one of the most formative experiences as an attorney because I looked at that case and I thought, you know, I mean, even the complaining witness on the stand knew she was not telling the truth. Everyone knew she was lying, but the system had had just developed in such a way where there was really no way out for her once she made an initial statement. Um, and so it just became this, you know, this train that was going down the tracks and couldn't be stopped. And and the jury acquitted in 15 minutes. And I just thought, wow, you know, maybe maybe I need to be a defense counsel. Maybe there's a reason God's putting me in this situation. And and I will tell you, uh after six months in that job, as a defense counsel at the Air Force Academy, um, I would have a very, very difficult time ever being a prosecutor again. What I learned very, very quickly, the people I worked with, the individuals I worked with. Um, I do a lot of things to feed my family if I had to, but to be a prosecutor again, to be a part of the system in that way, whether it's in the civilian system or the military side, um, would make me very, very uncomfortable because of what I saw and I learned. And there are abuses. Um, the military system can be a good system. It has the potential to be a good system. But there are a lot of problems and concerns, just like any other, you know, flawed justice system. And so I became very, very passionate about individuals being able to um speak truth into individuals' lives and just be there and care for someone when they're dealing with something so difficult, uh, whether they're innocent or not, dealing with the process, um, dealing with the government turning against you. And it really is. When you're charged with a crime in the military, the charge sheet it literally reads, it's captioned, you know, the United States versus you, the United States versus your name. Um, and so that's what you're facing. So it's a really uh just an amazing blessing, a wonderful thing to be able to represent folks like I had the opportunity to do both in the uniform and after I took the uniform off.

SPEAKER_01: 9:27

So I'm fascinated that you were at the Air Force Academy, especially because I just hosted Adam DiRito on my podcast. And I don't know if you're familiar with him or his story, but he has had a campaign for many, many years to clear his record at the Air Force Academy because he was actually a OSI agent. I have a whole podcast on it where he's he's talked about this issue. And he was also echoing exactly what you're talking about with some of these sexual assault cases that he was reporting on uh that was happening. He he, I believe it was with the football team, um, if I remember correctly. And so he is echoing exactly what you're talking about, that there were these cases that um sadly were not being prosecuted. And that gets into a really specific question about convening authorities. So I'd love to kind of start there. Um I just like to get right into it, right into this. Yeah, absolutely what we want to talk about.

SPEAKER_03: 10:24

Right. No, so so you you bring up this really interesting thing about the military justice process, and it's always been kind of this struggle, right? It's been a struggle really since the first American Army, the first Continental Army, George Washington was the first one to create a JAG and have a JAG core. Um, but there's been this battle within the military or this struggle in trying to find the balance between command authority and giving the commanders, giving commanders authority to um prosecute and convene cases for individuals under their authority and what is the role of an attorney and what is a role of the legal process. So, of course, the criticism of the military justice system has been that military commanders are not attorneys, um, they're not legal experts, therefore, they shouldn't be the final decision makers in um making these decisions on cases. And there are absolute horror stories of circumstances where there's a good old boy system or something else. So cases that really should have been prosecuted were not. They were swept under the rug because it was a good soldier, a good Marine, or a good pilot, or a football player, or whatever it is. There are those cases out there that is a reality. We can certainly find those cases and circumstances. Of course, the struggle within the military, and it's a struggle that's happening now, is what is the balance? And and I will tell you, since I came into the military in 2002, we have done a terrible job as a Department of War and as a nation in finding that right balance and how we handle military cases. Um, so now, and I don't know if you've covered this much, but now we have something called the Office of Special Trial Counsel, OSTC, for each branch. And they have this jurisdictional control over these high-level cases, the sexual assault cases, and things like that. So you have lawyers that are in a position to uh make decisions and actually be the ones that make a determination as whether or not charges will come in these cases. Uh, I will say, so far, from my perspective, it's a very new process. I guess we have to give it time to work. It's not working well.

SPEAKER_01: 12:29

So yeah, that's what I was about to ask. Like, is it is it unbiased? Are they really going what differently? Like if the convening authority is like, prosecute, prosecute, is the office of special trial going, no, we have the legal expertise, and this is a case that will not meet the the bar of of evidence or the you know the the standard of evidence. I I'm sorry, I'm still learning my legal.

SPEAKER_03: 12:51

It's all right, no, no, you're good. No, no, so so really what's interesting, right, is we we've moved to two different standards, right? And this is this is where we can kind of get into some of the details. But really, for a convening authority for a commander, they're the decision maker and they're being advised by by a JAG. And so the JAG's role is to talk about the case, talk about the facts of the case, and really legally advise the commander, but then the commander has to make a decision what's the right thing to do in this case? Is it is it right or wrong to move forward? And there were cases, and and and I will say this there were cases as a prosecutor, one in particular I can think of, a sexual assault case, and uh there were reasons why it was going to be an extremely difficult, if not impossible, case to win. But um, it felt right to move forward. It felt like it was a legitimate claim. There was reasons why the credibility was there to move forward. So the commander did. I think now OSTC wouldn't necessarily move forward on that case because their chance of win, they look at it differently. They have to have a reasonable chance of success at trial. That's the standard they have to look at. Can this case actually be won? Now, there's some background as to kind of how we got to OSTC. So I think in principle, it could be good. I am wary of any scenario where we do two things. One, I don't like the idea of taking authority out of the hands of military commanders and separating them from the justice and discipline process because they're not going to want to worry about it anymore. So all of a sudden, you can have this scenario where commanders aren't paying attention to justice anymore. And I don't think that's a positive thing. I am also wary of sort of consolidating authority in an office that can be highly political and is sort of run out of DC, right? So, and in some respects, although not always, if you have commands that are convenient authorities that are dispersed throughout the world, they're not all that close to the flagpole. OSTC is very, very close to the flagpole. And that concerns me when we look at sort of the political ramifications of what happens. Um, so those are some of the concerns I have. And again, I think people that some of the people that push hard for this, I don't think, have always had necessarily the best interest of military justice in mind when we created this new office. So we'll see how it does. But so far, all it's really done is slow things down.

SPEAKER_01: 15:14

Right. I mean, giving the decision to prosecute or not prosecute into the hands of commanding officers, the argument that I have heard from many of the people that come on my show, especially now with those who are who believe that they are false allegation victims, is the fact that they are proven guilty before any investigation. They're just assumed guilty. And then the commanders are too afraid because it is a sexual assault allegation, they are too afraid to drop it because of the political pressure of what will happen if you drop an allegation, no matter how unfounded it is, no matter how little evidence you have. So you have these poor warriors who now are in the investigative system for one year, two years, three years, whatever, because the command convening authority doesn't want to make a decision when it comes to justice. They want the Jags to deal with it, they want the lawyers to deal with it, they want the court martials to deal with it. So, my question to you, Davis, is if we got rid of the office of special trial counsel, what's gonna stop these people from saying, well, uh, I'm not a JAG, I don't know the law.

SPEAKER_03: 16:31

Well, I think that's a great question. And part of it just goes to questions about accountability for commanders because you're absolutely right. And here's the point you know, the problem that we had, and part of the reason why we have OSTC now is there was no commander that wanted to risk stopping a case from going to trial, even if they knew it was a bogus allegation. No, no commanders wanted to risk that because no commander was ever fired for being perceived as soft on sexual assault, right? I mean, excuse me, the other way around being too tough on sexual assault, right? But all these commanders, I mean, I could I can give you example after example of general officers, male and female, that were fired, that were summarily pushed out of the military in disgrace because they didn't move forward on a case that they didn't believe it was right to do. They exercised their screw discretion or discretion with the that's right, with the advice of Jags, and and they got crushed for it. And so, absolutely, politically, there's a significant period of time in our military where any commander that that didn't go forward after an allegation of sexual assault and didn't push it all the way forward to trial was absolutely risking their career, their pension, their reputation by doing that. And most weren't willing to do it. I mean, uh, this is this seems like an absurd example, but I'll never forget this. I I had not wasn't that long out of active duty service in the military. I was a civilian defense counsel. I was defending um an E6 at Dover Air Force Base, right? And it was a ridiculous case. Charges should never have been brought against my client. There were exculpatory witnesses, exculpatory evidence, but it was a sexual assault case. So of course it went forward to trial. And I'll never forget this moment. My quiet, my client gets acquitted. I walk out into the hallway outside of the courtroom at Dover Air Force Base, and there's the commander, the commander that preferred charges against my client, leading his entire squadron in a cheer and clapping for us. That we got the acquittal. Oh my God. I just stopped and I looked him in the eye and I said, sir, I said, stop. Not only is this not appropriate or professional, you're the one that preferred charges. I don't think it's appropriate for you to be out here celebrating after you're the you were the accuser in this case. And I just and they just all stopped and I just walked away with my client. But it was appalling, but it was like this commander was like, Wow, I just, you know, I mean, I literally would hear as a defense counsel, I would meet with commanders and I would I would hear commander say, Well, I mean, I just want him to get his day in court and he'll be exonerated and everything will be fine. And I'm sitting here going, after two years of hell, after putting a marriage at risk, after putting assignments at risk, after having your reputation. Right, huge amounts of money to have a proper defense in these cases to if you have a civilian attorney come in. And and guess what? You you, as a commander, you're putting this in the hands of a court-martial panel of a jury, and no one has any control of what's going to happen in that room once that door closes.

SPEAKER_01: 19:36

You know what?

SPEAKER_03: 19:36

And I have seen people wrongfully convicted. So that that's where that's where I get fired up. So even though I I tend to philosophically say it should be in the hands of commanders, I recognize we have an OSTC because commanders failed.

SPEAKER_01: 19:51

Because commanders didn't lead and they didn't make decisions about proper due process, they didn't look at the evidence like a jury does and say, okay, is this person credible? Is this allegation true? Is the statements consistent throughout? Was there evidence to show that a crime happened? We can all do that. And so you're getting at the root cause, which I really appreciate. The root cause is that commanders stopped commanding. And so, because of that, they decided to let the courts deal with it because it was politically uh suicide. It was political suicide to drop certain cases because of how it would be seen. And I think that's disgusting. I mean, that's just my personal layperson's opinion. I can say that.

SPEAKER_03: 20:38

Um, I think that's I absolutely agree. And I absolutely agree. And that's why we have so much congressional involvement. That's why we've had so much congressional oversight. It's why we've had the Office of Special Trial Counsel. But here's the other thing that I think you'll actually really appreciate. Um, and I don't think this is talked about enough. Um, because this is where I get upset as well. Uh, you know, quite frankly, we're we're not being fair to the people that actually have been sexually assaulted, that are actually real victims in the military when we take all of these bogus cases forward, um, because it it creates cynicism. And I've seen this, it creates cynicism within the military. It can create cynicism within military panels, but it also drags people who shouldn't be dragged through a process to get there. I mean, I have seen cases where, you know, the complaining witness in a sexual assault case, something, something bad happened to them, but their case is not one that's going to result in a conviction, right or wrong. There, there's a problem with the evidence or something else, it's not going to result from a conviction. It does them no good themselves to be drugged through two years of an investigation, to be forced to go to trial and testify, to have their privacy invaded, to be subject to cross-examination. None of that does anyone any good, right? If it's not a case that should move forward. And I say that as a defense attorney. I mean, I spent a lot of time cross-examining people that um claim they were sexually assaulted. But I don't think it's right for many of those cases to go to trial um, regardless of what happened, because it's not going to result in a conviction. It's not going to result in a just outcome. And in that respect, we're not doing anyone any favors.

SPEAKER_01: 22:19

Right. And the problem is with these false allegation cases is that it harms the credibility and the sanctity of the process, and it harms true victims, because then true victims are now seen in this bias of the fact that the military can't figure out which cases are true and which cases are untrue. So, because of that, the ones that might be true, they don't feel they're going to get a fair shake either. And so both sides of this issue, like I was talking about with Keith Berry on my last show on this issue, uh, former Navy SEAL uh who was uh acquitted in his, I think his second appeal, he said to me that this is not a man versus woman issue. This is a justice issue.

SPEAKER_03: 23:02

That's absolutely right. It's absolutely right.

SPEAKER_01: 23:05

So I I really believe that that's that's where this needs to go. And uh to that end, I'm just going to be watching this as my audience will very closely to see uh what efforts the Department of War will take. I did see that the Army put out a memo that they're going to invest like investigate the validity of the cases more, uh, but it wasn't anything particular to UCMJ uh reform or anything along those lines. So I think my next question is sometimes even before we get to this court-martial procedure, we have these administrative investigations. And these administrative investigations also are the processes, the punishment, because people are under administrative investigation for, let's say, harassment or bullying or some of these other work, toxic workplace issues, and then they're taken out of their chain of command, and then they're on some sort of a hold, their promotions are on hold, all these things. What are some of the ideas? I've talked to uh I had Tim Parlatore on my show, and we talked about some of those ideas that we could take to reform the administrative system. And I'm curious from your perspective, and then I'll ask you what we can do to reform the UCMJ. I'm just getting right into every question.

SPEAKER_03: 24:20

Yeah, no, this is this is great. Yeah, this is great, you know. And and Tim and I have had some of these same conversations. We we've talked about this because we both listen, we both love the military. We want to see the system work well and and be fair, but we also spend spend our lives fighting against you know injustice in the system. So, I mean, there's so much to talk about, but one of the things that I joke about is there are so many ways that the military and a bad commander or a bad situation can end a career administratively. And at best in these administrative investigations, you're talking about due process light, right? You're talking about very, very limited due process. So, you know, as it stands right now, and I think that the uh some of the things that the Secretary of War said today in his, I think what will prove to be a historic speech are really, really important on this issue. But as it stands now, without changes coming in, I mean, a someone can make the craziest, wildest allegation against you when you're serving as a service member. And the way the administrative process is built, you are going to be presumed guilty and you're going to be treated as if you are guilty throughout the investigation, however long the investigation takes. And quite often, quite often, um, commanders will feel compelled to give you some sort of administrative paperwork at the end of that process simply because um they think that's what they're supposed to do. I mean, and they want to appease both sides.

SPEAKER_01: 25:54

I've seen it. My friend did not do a darn thing and they couldn't find anything on her, but she they still wrote her up and gave her a piece of paper, and it was very stressful and painful for her. And then I had another friend that had to go to some special school to learn how to be more sensitive or more. I mean, it was just it was ridiculous. And and she there was no harm, no malintent in what she was saying, but people can weaponize certain things, especially when it comes to immutable characteristics. They can weaponize those things and say, you are racist, you are sexist, you are this, you are that. And so a lot of times people are very sensitive to those things. Um, especially more so, I would argue, in the last administration. I don't mean to get political, but sometimes in the last administration, that was more acceptable to do that. And people were going down because of it and they were terrified.

SPEAKER_03: 26:51

Well, you know, again, there's so many examples I I could give, but I saw I saw this a lot in the guard. So I'm one of those unique people. I went from 12 years, almost 12 years of active duty. I served some time in the guard and I retired from the reserve. So I kind of saw all three sides of this. But in the guard, I used to tell people, especially commanders that I that I worked for that I liked and respected, I would tell them do not, whatever you do when you are up for promotion, do not let anyone know that's a possibility. Do everything you can to keep it a secret. Because inevitably, the good leaders, the leaders that actually work towards holding people accountable, every time they went up for promotion, there would be five or six IG or EO complaints against them. I'm not kidding you. I even saw the best, and I'm I'm not kidding when I say this. He's been written about in books. He was a colonel in the Pennsylvania National Guard. He was one of the most effective combat leaders I've ever been around, just tremendously effective, specifically during the surge in Iraq as a guard member. The organization, the unit, it they were phenomenal. And it even reached a point where he told the general officer from the active duty side, you need to stay out of our way so we can do our job. And finally the general said, and this is what he wrote about and spoke, okay, I'll give you two weeks to see if you can do the job. And if you can, I'll stay out of your way. And he never had to come back because they did the job. But that same colonel comes back to the Pennsylvania National Guard, impeccable record, great man, great leader, kind person. And I kid you not, he never got promoted to one star because they started 10 or 15 different IG complaints against him. And he was found, he was found, substantiated to have used government resources because he once used his government cell phone for a personal call about an investment in a franchise. And he he sent an email to a couple of folks that were investing in a franchise with him. He sent one email and it was responding to an email they had sent him to his work email to say, please don't send me any more emails at this address. Use my Gmail address. But that resulted in two substantiated IG complaints for misuse of government resources, and it became political then. And he never got promoted, never got a star. And so he just retired and took a better job anyway.

SPEAKER_01: 29:11

And you know what's so sad? We just lost like a kick-ass warfighter. And that's what pisses me.

SPEAKER_03: 29:16

Well, that's what uh that's what frustrated me. I mean, I got to meet the guy, but I'm just like, what he was able to do, uh, particularly, you know, as a guardsman, particularly during the surge in Iraq, it was it was just phenomenal work. But you know, I was laughing listening to um to Secretary, uh, the Secretary of War today, Hexeth, because he was talking about things like like physical fitness. And I was laughing because um the first time I was ever quoted in Stars and Stripes for a case I did, it was in Italy, and it was an army case. I was defending an army E8, this phenomenal female NCO. And one of the things that ended up on a charge sheet was for her bullying and maltreating her troop, her soldier, because the allegation was she called her. Soldier fat. Well, so I was quoted in the Stars and Stribes as saying that our defense was that the soldier was in fact fat. And my point was, and I did say that in opening statement, I said, look, the facts are that according to Army standards, this troop was not in standards and was therefore deemed over height and you know, over the height and weight standards was not, you know, and so it was well, the army says you're fat. So I was misquoted, but it was funny. But even, you know, Secretary Hagseth talking about that today, and I and I say that matters because during the last administration in particular, we saw this some in the Obama administration as well. Was that bottom line is that these investigations were able to be weaponized? And the bottom line is if you were a military leader that started to hold people accountable, that started to you know have a set of standards for other individuals, you are subject to a weaponized investigation process and you could be fired. So, what happens in an environment like that? You lower your standards, you lower your standards, you lower your standards, and guess what? It's only the squeaky queen clean people who have never hold people held people accountable, right? Who've never made anyone sad. That's right, who never held people to the standards bureaucrats, those beers.

SPEAKER_01: 31:20

Those are the ones that are they're the ones that cry that crime to the top. Because I will tell you, I I've I'm I've been a victim of this myself. I've I learned real quick when I was the public affairs officer on USS Nimitz that complaints could be weaponized. And if you tried to hold someone too accountable, then they would just go crying to somebody else. And I realized that my leadership didn't have my back. And that was a very important lesson to get as an 04. And so, what did I do? I lowered the standards. I stopped demanding all the media products that I was demanding. Like I was, I had everybody on a tracker. I was like, we're gonna do five photos a day, we're gonna do one story a week. I mean, and I thought, like, this is reps and sets. This makes you a better communicator, this makes you a better storyteller. Nobody saw it that way. They hated that damn tracker and they hated that spreadsheet. And my division officer, who remained nameless, uh, she found a way to fight against me and to get to my executive officer. And what did I do? I got a letter of instruction about all these other things that I refuted. I refuted it line by line, and he said, just take the letter of instruction as written. So I did, and I learned my standards. And the next thing I know, my chief who plays both sides told me the morale has gotten so much better. It's it's so much higher lately. And I was like, you guys know what I did. I just stopped, I stopped demanding all the things I was demanding, and I just said, Okay, well, I and I hated having to do that, but I knew like I wanted to stay in the Navy, I wanted to push my career forward, and I knew that this was a battle that I wasn't gonna win because nobody, no one had my back. And so I I just I just stopped and I was sad because I felt like they could have gotten a lot better and we all could have gotten a lot better. And I love my craft, but it was just not worth it. And I feel like that's a microcosm of what happened to me there. That because when I got to NATO, I I got real smart and I was like, okay, I'm just gonna lower, lower, lower, lower because you can't ask people for too much because they can always weaponize the system. And it's just it's sad. That's not the kind of military that I ever wanted to serve in.

SPEAKER_03: 33:26

Right. No, I mean, and I I will say it's part of the reason I I got out when I did, and it's part of the reason I wanted to stay in the defense side as long as I could because I wasn't, I didn't have to play those politics, right? Um, I didn't have to play those games because I was working for myself and individual clients or supervising other defense counsel. So I had some really good leaders. And and uh, you know, my last job on active duty, I was chief of the military justice division at the Air Force Jag School, which was phenomenal because we had a great leader and we were able to do a lot of really neat things and try to educate and train and all of that. But I also saw that that the military had changed just in 10 years from 2002 to 2012. It had changed so much that there was things I did as a young leader in the military in my first legal office that I would get in trouble for um if if someone didn't like it. I mean, I used to walk out and and it's just a legal office. I get that. It's we're not the war fighters, I understand that. But we had was busy. Um, we were extremely busy at Lackland Air Force, busiest, you know, Air Force legal office in the world. We were our ops tempo was crazy. There was long hours to get things done. And you know, I would do things in the middle of the day, like go out into this like bullpen area where all the paralegals were, and I'd be like, All right, I don't hear enough typing. Everybody on the ground, give me 20, right? Like I would do, and I wasn't really punishing them, but I was just trying, like I knew we were working so many hours. You know, this is the Air Force, you don't take time out to PT, right? Right, at least until today, maybe but I'm telling you, I'm telling you, like these like these people, like they were they were trying to decide like, am I gonna show up and get this done for a commander or am I gonna go PT? Like that was a constant battle for us. And I knew some of them were on the verge of failing, so I wasn't trying to be jerk, I wasn't trying to be hard on them. But like, man, if I if I did that today, like I would probably, you know, I don't know, if I was a leader of a legal office and I had everybody drop down and give me 20 because somebody showed up late for a meeting, I'd probably be EO and three IG complaints. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01: 35:30

It's really hard because it's like it's human nature to take the path of least resistance. And when you are around others that have set that tone of the path of least resistance, even your star performers, they start to give up and they start to just say, Well, man, nobody else cares. So I guess I'm not gonna care either. And that's the culture that we've built. And that is what to me was so eye-watering and made my just heart sing today when I heard the what the Secretary of War said. And just to transition very slowly onto that uh subject, I I know that you also watched that uh presentation. Tell me a little bit about what you were thinking as you were watching it.

SPEAKER_03: 36:10

You know, uh so many thoughts. I I think that there is um, and and it's hard when we have spent the last couple of decades fighting the kind of wars we've fought and then seeing um the way we left Afghanistan because that was an absolute and complete disaster. And it felt, you know, I don't care what anybody says to me, to someone who served my entire career was spent, you know, during um these Iraq and Afghanistan engagements, it felt like we lost. It felt like abject failure. It felt like we were abandoning people, abandoning equipment, abandoning what we said we believed in to be there, what people died, what people we served with died, and I've been permanently maimed, injured, whatever it is, over. Um, and so to have someone come in who's actually a war fighter, has a warfighter mentality, and say, no, this is this is what we do. Look, when I came to officer training in the Air Force in 2002, uh, the the thing I heard repeated is the the job of the Air Force, the only job of the Air Force is to break things and kill people. That's it. Our job, it doesn't matter if you're a Jag, it doesn't matter what you are or who you are. Your job in the Air Force is to support the mission of breaking things and killing people because that's what we are. So we talk about the M. We are military, we're not something else. That's absolutely what we're supposed to be. And the Department of War has become a huge, bloated bureaucracy. It has grown wildly, and and really it doesn't feel like it's about the warfighter. It feels, I think, again, towards the end of my career, and I don't know what you how you felt and experienced this, but far too often it felt like everything but actual combat training, everything but mission focused, everything but actually getting in shape so that you can do your job effectively in austere environments, everything else was a priority. Computer-based training, um, all of these things just ridiculous. So the things I was hoping to hear, the things I wanted to hear are standards matter, do process matters. Yeah, and he said, We're not gonna destroy real leaders and good leaders just because they say something that makes someone sad, right? Right.

SPEAKER_01: 38:26

It was crazy. Like, and he talked it, he even addressed, and you know, this really made made a PAO's heart sing when he addressed the um rude conduct online. And I know you had an amazing podcast with Chase Spears, finding your spine where you guys went, and I'll actually link to it in the show notes where you guys did a deep dive on military members' irresponsible, I mean disrespectful uh conduct online. And you know, there's people on the other side of the aisle which there should this should not be a political issue at all, who try to say this is a free speech issue. And I'm like, no, say celebrating the murder of a civilian who exercised his free speech and spoke up about the things he was passionate about, celebrating him being killed is not free speech. And that is not the kind of conduct that our military members should be using. And if us veterans have to shine a spotlight on their public comments and expose them, then so be it. We'll keep doing it because we we've got to fix it. We've got to fix that. And that goes back to the warrior ethos and the professionalism and everything that we're seeing the Department of War trying to get after.

SPEAKER_03: 39:36

Yeah, and and it really is about standards and accountability. What we should want from our military officers and our professional soldiers is the highest standard. That's why it's a crime under the Uniform Code of Military Justice to engage in what we call conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, right? We that's a crime in the military, and it is defined as doing things that fall below the expected standards of decent moral conduct for a human being. Right. And so that that, I mean, just by virtue of putting on the uniform, and again, especially speaking to officers here, like there is a standard you're expected to hold to. Why? Because the American people are trusting you with the ability to be devastating in war and actually take lives. And so you have to have character, you have to have standards, you have to have accountability because our expectation is when our nation goes to war, we're going to do so in a manner that is just and right and morally justified. And we can't do that if we don't have officers and professional soldiers of the absolute highest caliber. We should never, we should never have being a warrior and having a warrior ethos should never mean bloodlust and being bloodthirsty and hoping people die or hoping people you consider an enemy die. That's not what we want. When we talk about warrior ethos, we talk about breaking things and killing people. What we really want is peace through strength. We want to be so big and so bad and so powerful that no nation in the world ever wants to challenge us because they know it's not worth it. And that's that's what I want to see. And guess what? It does come from little things. It does come from little things like uh every military member should be able to pass a PT test. I was joking, I was joking with my my law partner, um, Caleb Byrd, yesterday before Heg Seth speech. I'm like, you know what we should do? What would be a lot of fun? And I don't I didn't know what Heg Seth was gonna talk about, but I said, what would be a lot of fun is to establish a system in the military where PT tests were like random drug tests. In other words, you could show up to work any day and have less than 24 hours notice that you're gonna be PT tested.

SPEAKER_01: 41:48

I love that, Davis.

SPEAKER_03: 41:50

Yeah, and I thought that would be the greatest, right? It's your job, it's literally part of your job.

SPEAKER_01: 41:55

In fact, I'll tell you, all the fit not fat and everything. Well, and I'm retired now, so uh admittedly I have a little more time, but I'm loving it. Like I'm going to Planet Fitness now every single day. I'm working out for an hour and a half a day. I have never like I am in the best shape of my life. I mean, and I'm loving it. Like I can do like seven pull-ups now. I mean, this is fun. PT is fun and it's camaraderie. I mean, I love that Bobby Peg Seth challenge. I have not done it yet, but I I look forward to trying to do it. And I I just I mean, those are all great things. And what I also really loved was when he filmed the video, he had a female who could do like a zillion of them and and showcase her. And that really sent such a positive message that we're all warriors. And so it was it was great. So let's get back to the uh to to the more fun stuff, administrative system. Um, so but just wanted to do that quick sidebar about about just what I think is a historical um making uh speech. You did say you had an antidote about it, I think before the oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 43:03

What I was gonna say is I was uh my so I was watching it with my um my 15-year-old daughter. She's homeschooled, so she was home and and I was watching it, and she was sort of getting starting getting started on her schoolwork. And then he talked about the the fat generals and admirals walking through the Pentagon, and she just looked at me and just started busting up, laughing. And from that point on, she wanted to watch the rest of the speech because she's you know, she's heard me talk, she's heard us joke about um that case where where I called that soldier fat. And uh, you know, so it was just a funny thing. But you know, you know, I don't she's not gonna join the military. She doesn't have an interest in doing that, but even that just like she knew enough, she's been around me enough, even so she when she was younger when I was on active duty that immediately like she was drawn into that. She wanted to listen to it, she wanted to hear what he had to say, she wanted to hear him talk about character and accountability and standards. And she's just 15, but it was fascinating just to see her be drawn into that, even though you know he was being funny and joking around about it. But it was true. And I just I love that because I thought, no, that is how we inspire young people to be interested in military service. Um, so he's hit on I think the right tone, the right messaging. And I think he's extremely sincere in what he's trying to do. It's not easy, a lot of work to be done, but I do think he's sincere in his efforts right now.

SPEAKER_01: 44:18

He really is, and he looks so tired sometimes. I saw him at the for the uh gold star family. He was talking, and you know, I just thought, man, he's got so many people in the building probably fighting him right now. He's got the Pentagon Press Corps at his throat, all these people that don't want to see this change. But the funny thing is, and I had this talk at MIC, and I'll share my quick antidote, and then we'll get back to the administrative system. Because what I want to know is what you think the fixes are for the administrative system, and then what you'd love to see in UCMJ reform. So I can't, I cannot stop this call until we have those two conversations. But I have okay, but I have to share the antidote about what happened when I was at the military influencer conference before I got kicked out. I think it kicked out, unfortunately. But before I was kicked out, um, the night of the social, I was talking to a um Veronica. I can't remember her last name, but if she's watching, she'll she knows who she is. She is a Navy recruiter and she's very active on social media. She's a full-time recruiter, and she's got a huge social media following and all these things. And she was very active in the last administration posting. Everyone knew who she was. She went to a lot of recruiting events and a lot of stuff for Navy ambassadors. And she told me, she said, Teresa, this warrior ethos. And I can tell she's maybe I could be wrong, maybe a little more left of center, but she's like, that's why I joined. I joined for the warrior ethos. And then I had somebody else, I won't say who it is, who definitely is more left of center. And she said, Teresa, sometimes it just feels like people just want to be victims. And it shocked me. I was just like, it's like they want, they want to be stronger, they want to be better, they want to have standards, they want merit, even if they're on the left. And I thought, like, this is why we need these in-person conversations. This is why I shouldn't have been kicked out of Mick after I gave a presentation saying we should talk more. You know, like this is why, because I believe there's more that we agree on. There's more we have in common than what the media and and the and the haters online like to say. Like when we're face to face, I believe those are where the connections are happening. So that's just my personal opinion. But I don't know how you feel about that.

SPEAKER_03: 46:28

No, I I I agree. And I think that that's that can be a positive change we're seeing. And I think in some respects the younger generation respects that. It's about the warrior ethos, but it's also this idea. And again, I don't want to go down too much of a rabbit hole on this, but we have made heroes out of victimhood, right? So there's this mentality we see it in in some, we see it in public schools, certainly, uh, unfortunately, quite often, where it's this idea, and I think it's certain partially a Marxist principle of the oppressed and the oppressor. But that's right, the highest goal is to be more oppressed than anyone else, and the ultimate oppression is to be a victim. And so we create these scenarios where people kind of begin to define everything their life around victimhood. Um, and that's really sad. And it and it doesn't sit well with the military. I mean, I that's why I prefer terminology like survivor, like anything that happens in life, you know, God God can bring you through that. You can survive that. You can, you don't have to define yourself by um that low moment, that difficult thing you face. It doesn't have to define everything about you. But we've developed, I think Marxist principles in large part are part of it, but we've developed these ideas in the military that that reward victimhood to the point where, you know, there's no accountability, but also you're just rewarded for it. And when I say rewarded for it, you know, um, someone who claims that they were sexually assaulted in the military can then claim military sexual trauma and potentially get tax-free VA disability benefits for their life for the rest of their life for yeah, tax-free for the rest of their life for um making a claim of sexual assault, regardless of whether it ever goes to trial or anything else, they can claim that. Now, there are people that deserve that. There are people that do suffer from the effects of that 100%. But there are also people, and I've met some of them, terrifyingly so, because I've been defending my clients against their false allegations that would absolutely lie and say they were sexually assaulted for a lot less than that, but certainly that much.

SPEAKER_01: 48:35

Absolutely. And that is part of the problem, is that these cases need to be investigated. And I I call on the you know Department of Veterans Affairs uh who've been very good to me and I'm very happy with the VA. And they need to look at some of these cases. And I know it's not going to be politically fun, I know it's going to be hard, but I think that Doug Collins is doing a great job. I did get to see him speak at Mick, and he really sent a lot of great messages out to the veteran community. And I believe that it is the veteran community that can speak up and speak out about this because false allegations are not just sexual assault. I mean, I was falsely accused of housing fraud through a fan label officer's Facebook page. I mean, there's there's false allegations everywhere. I was I was falsely accused last week of of passing along contact information without somebody's consent. People can say whatever they want, they can falsely accuse you of anything. And you really have to be very smart about the way that you defend yourself. And we need, and getting back to the administrative fixes and the UCMJ fixes, we need a system that's fair. And that when someone is accused of a crime, they know or accused of workplace bullying or or whatever the issue is. They need to know that they're gonna be safe because we're not gonna have people that want to join a military if they're knowing from their parents or from their friends that this is not a safe place to serve because they're going to get waked over the coals if they get caught up in this system. So tell me uh a little bit about what you would suggest. If you you're king for the day, uh, what would you suggest to try to remedy some of these uh issues within the we'll start with the administrative system?

SPEAKER_03: 50:15

Yeah, just from a procedural standpoint, I think there are some small things we can do to make things better. I mean, one of the things we need to do is just emphasize at every turn any any type of adverse action, any administrative investigation in the military. It needs to be based on absolutely credible, verifiable evidence. Um, and there should be a high threshold for the investigation even starting. Not necessarily to make um make things difficult for people to file complaints, but that's not our problem right now, right? We've we've got a weaponized system right now with far too many false complaints. So we need a system where there's actually real checks at the beginning before the investigation picks up steam and and moves forward. The other thing that we need to do is very simple, is we need to do things like include clear defenses within the military system that actually matter, especially on the administrative side. What do I mean by that? Here's here's an example again. This is this is an idea that my my law partner, Caleb and I were talking about today. He came up with it, but he said, hey, we should have it should be a defense to an allegation of hostile work environment, bullying, or harassment. The defense should be adherence to military standards. In other words, if I am a leader and someone says, Oh, you're bullying me, right? Because I I was upset that you showed up late to work, or I disciplined you for showing up late to work or abusing leave or leaving early or taking a long lunch, and and people laugh, but that's what's happening in the military, right? People get crushed, their careers get ruined over this. And so it would be great if there was an affirmative defense administratively called strict adherence to military standards. And every regulation started out with when evaluating an allegation of bullying, harassment, maltreatment, or a hostile work environment. The there should the first question that should be asked was the leader trying to enforce a military standard and strictly adhering to that standard?

SPEAKER_01: 52:18

If and that would be something that the IO would look at. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03: 52:22

And they would have to document that, and a JAG would have to document with them, and a commander that's initiated in the investigation would have to document that in writing that they have reviewed that, that they understood that. And it's only after they've let, and that's a complete defense. And if it's clear that even if we, you know, maybe we don't like some of the language that was used, or we maybe we don't like the tone that was used, or maybe we don't like, you know, you know, someone raised their voice in enforcing that standard, we're not gonna discipline them, we're not gonna give them a piece of paper in their file that never goes away. Substantiated IG complaints, EO, so much administrative paperwork in the military, at least until today, when Hegset started making changes, follows you forever. And that's where you get this zero defect military that people talk about.

SPEAKER_01: 53:07

Like, let's try to make our leaders better. Like, I can tell you, like, I made a lot of mistakes when I was on Nimitz. Like, I I had a condescending tone sometimes when I was frustrated, and I learned that you can't have a condescending tone. I also gave up too info too much information to certain subordinates. Like I wanted to be able to share with people because I was like the one female, you know, department head. There was like me and one other. And and sometimes I would say things to subordinates that that I think were a little too personal, to be honest. And I learned from that. And I and and to be fair to my exo, I only got a letter of instruction. So it stayed in my it stayed in my command file. And I've actually written about this and will publish it, where I do give him credit for the fact that it didn't adversely impact my career. I was able to go on and to continue to serve and to lead, and I made 05. But that is absolutely correct. Like there has to be this time where we say, you know what? Maybe our leaders, especially at the 03 and 04 level, have never been in charge of a mass amount of people. They're probably in the sometimes in their first command position. They might not be screamers all the time. They might have raised their voice inappropriately. Yes, they might need some work. They might need to work on their leadership, and that's okay. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03: 54:26

Absolutely. And and listen, again, some of the best leaders I've ever worked for or with um occasionally dropped an F bomb or you know, said something that made someone sad, you know. And, you know, I I mean, I worked again, one of the best leaders I ever worked for was a general that I worked for. And if he didn't call me an effing idiot when I walked into his office, I knew he was mad at me.

SPEAKER_02: 54:49

Right. Right.

SPEAKER_03: 54:50

Like I knew he was upset because, you know, to him that was a term of endearment. And he was, you know, he'd been an MP in Vietnam, right? He was an ancient guy, but that was just his mentality. And again, he ended his career with uh under investigation and was forced out early at the end of his career as a two-star general because he said something that, you know, made someone sad and it turned into a substantiated IG complaint. So, in in all of these things, we can have common sense reform where we have standards that say, I mean, put it in writing, as simple as the military is a place where we recognize that even the best leaders will make mistakes and need to learn from their mistakes. We should seek to find ways to counsel, instruct, and train people that do not necessarily result in career-ending consequences unless it rises to the level of something that someone cannot recover from. Like we can do that, it's possible. We can walk and shoot gum at the same time.

SPEAKER_01: 55:46

Right. You do you think we need better trained IOs, though? Do you think we need people that actually know what they're doing?

SPEAKER_03: 55:51

What training for IOs? There is right, there is zero. That's what I'm saying. Again, I can't talk about ongoing cases, but I mean, you know, I spent half my day today dealing with you know, military members, officers with stellar records and careers, and I'm dealing with IOs. God bless them, most of them have never done an investigation of any kind.

SPEAKER_01: 56:09

They have no idea what they're doing, let alone what's going on.

SPEAKER_03: 56:11

They have no idea what they're doing, they have no idea how how confirmation bias can easily play a role. They're not presuming innocence. They and some of them unfortunately feel command pressure. They assume, well, the commander wanted me to investigate this. He must be guilty. They must be guilty, or the commander's going to be disappointed if I don't come up with something, or maybe I've done a bad job. Right. And they can pick up with some evidence.

SPEAKER_01: 56:35

They can pick the way the evidence. And do you think that that needs to change? Or do you think like I that's but one of my struggles with the administrative system is do you think that if you're the accused, you should have the right to have your own witnesses? I have seen that. I've seen some people fight that where they will go around and get witness statements uh as the accused, but I believe those witness statements that the accused goes and collects should also be part of the investigation.

SPEAKER_03: 57:03

Well, I uh absolutely I do that all the time with my clients, and I've also been accused of trying to obstruct justice by conducting my own investigation, right? Like, how dare you interview witnesses that might have a different version of the event? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So uh no, we we do need we do need more realistic training um for our IOs, and and there's different ways to do that. And again, if we do what Secretary of War has suggested, spend less time doing stupid training, then we maybe we have time for for more um training for IOs, and maybe we actually look to IOs. And you know, one of the things I see, and I feel bad for IOs because I've been a legal advisor to an I.O. And so, you know, you have a I mean, you have like a a maintenance officer, right? An O3 maintenance officer who has never, has never had to, I mean, they have an engineering degree, right? Like they've never had to do an investigation, they've never had to interrogate witnesses, they've never had to try to discern the credibility of someone in a statement like this. They've never had to interact with the law, and they don't have the tool set to be effective at conducting these investigations. So I do think that there's a lot we could do in the way we train IOs. We can think of it as an additional duty, we can take it much more seriously. Um, I think that's not unrealistic if we do this well. But the other thing is we just need to have a higher standard before we start these investigations. And we need to empower commanders. Again, I think um Secretary Heggs says trying to do this, but we need to empower commanders to be willing to say, no, that's not a toxic work environment. That's called standards. That is your leader. You may not like their tone, or they may have said something that makes you sad. But yes, in fact, you are you are over the height and weight standards, or you are not going to pass a PT test, right? Therefore, there are going to be consequences, right? I mean, again, I you know, people that work for me, I mean, I had a simple rule. If I knew your PT test was coming up about two months out, you had to go do a PT test with me. You had to go do a PT test with me. Right. And if you weren't ready to pass your PT test, guess what? You got to PT with me every day until I was confident you could pass your test or until you were injured and couldn't do it and had a profile. And I would just candidly ask the people that work for me, do you do you want to be in the Air Force or not?

SPEAKER_01: 59:31

Right. Because I don't know where we're really simple. I just don't understand it. Like you're fat, that's okay. Right. I mean, everybody gets fat, and I'm not everybody, but people get fat. In fact, I have a funny story. I was working out today next to somebody who was very overweight, but the guy was just busting his ass and he was going really super fast on the on the stair climber. And I was like, Oh, I'm not really going that fast. Is he he's he's really putting Uh more effort than I am. And he was motivating me. And he was huge. And so it doesn't matter that you're fat. Who cares? Just do something about it and get in shape because you can do it. You can lose weight. And it's okay to say that someone needs to lose weight. That's okay. So I I I really do I love that. I think those are great ideas. And I'm sure a committee or whatever at the Department of War can come together to get some common sense solutions to this administrative system. And I'll be following that very closely. Now let's tackle, I mean, unless you have something else you want to add that.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:38

No, no, I think those that's great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:40

Okay. And then let's let's move on to the UCMJ system. Are there things within the UCMJ system, which of course would be much harder? In fact, correct me if I'm wrong, Davis, but to change the UCMJ, you pretty much need an NDAA, correct? Or am I wrong?

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:55

Correct. Right. You have to have congressional involvement and ultimately the president then, you know, enacts the changes to the UCMJ that Congress.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:04

So that's a lot more difficult. Do you think that there are some things that need to be changed, or do you think it's good the way it is?

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:10

No, absolutely. We need some changes. And and the sad part is some of the changes that we need are things that have been done recently, right? So so here's the best example, and we're going to be talking about Article 120 of the UCMJ, sexual assault, once again. But I I think this is critically important. You know, the since I've been in, uh, there's been this feeling among some sectors and certain politicians in particular, that there's just not enough convictions in the military, that the conviction rate in the military is too low, right? Uh, which I think is sort of an absurd thing. That's an absurd thing, especially when, listen, the military takes cases to trial in the realm of sexual assault that no other jurisdiction in the world would take to trial because there is an unlimited budget to prosecute those cases in the military. And when I say there's an unlimited budget to do that, that is absolutely the case. Never once did I ever have someone come to me and say, no, you cannot spend that money on prosecuting or defending that case. Money is not the issue, right? So cases without DNA evidence, without cooperating evidence that are just based on hearsay or a single statement go to trial with very little chance of a successful prosecution. So one of the checks we used to have in place in the military justice system was the idea of an Article 32 preliminary hearing, right? And this Article 32 preliminary hearing used to be a real hearing where the government had to call witnesses and the defense could actually cross-examine witnesses. Um, the government will call the complaining witness. And guess what? An effective defense counsel and quite frankly, an effective prosecutor would kill cases at that Article 32 preliminary hearing, and it wouldn't move forward to trial because um it was not going to be a successful prosecution, or there were some other issues with the case, and those came out. Congress has over time, over the last eight years in particular, absolutely gutted the preliminary hearing process where it's essentially meaningless.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:15

That's sad. Wow.

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:16

So so there's no real, there's no real power, there's no real meaning in this preliminary hearing. So, you know, in the civilian world, you might have a grand jury, an independent grand jury that comes up with an indictment, or you'll have another type of preliminary hearing. We call them preliminary hearings in the military now, but they're they are meaningless, they're absolutely meaningless.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:36

So that could be where a lot of these cases stop.

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:38

That could be where people get the most of them should stop. It's where most of them should stop. And only the ones that actually have merit, that actually have credible evidence that could result in a in a sustainable conviction go forward to trial. So that's one simple thing. And the fortunate thing is there's a blueprint because we used to do this much better um than we did it today.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:59

Would you need a UDN DAA or a law to make the article 132 tighter?

SPEAKER_03: 1:04:04

You would.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:04

You would sadly. Oh god.

SPEAKER_03: 1:04:06

Sadly you would. Yeah. Okay. Sadly you would. But that would be that would be a huge thing. Um, I I think the other thing, I mean, there are other simple things that could be done as far as this goes, but I think I think that's probably the most significant, reasonable change that could be made. Here's another change that impacts um both the the military, um, both the criminal side of things and the administrative side of things. And this is a little nuanced, but this is something that I've been advocating for change. I even drafted legislation on this point um all the way back in 2015. But something that most people don't know is that just merely being investigated in the military, even if you are so if you are investigated by military law enforcement, even if you are never charged with a crime, titling, even if you are never even given a single piece of adverse action and and you leave the military honorably, you can be what's called titled by military law enforcement, which means you were fingerprinted and they create an FBI entry in the National Criminal Information Database. So this database run by the FBI makes it look like you were a military member who was arrested and charged with a crime simply because you were investigated. It's a huge problem for veterans. I represent people all the time that deal with this that had no idea that their name, that they had been titled. That's what we call it, a titling action, that they had been titled and this is entry. So they go to purchase a gun or get a concealed carry permit. And all of a sudden, some of them have even, you know, almost faced charges in states because they thought they were lying on that form when they said, Have you ever been charged with a crime? They they get their security clearance pulled because they get accused of lying because this record makes it look like they were arrested and charged with a crime. Um, the same is true, you know, for people who go a civilian job that requires a federal background check. So that's something that can result from an administrative process if law enforcement is involved or an investigation, again, even if there are no charges or anything else. So that's another change I would love to get more people interested in and talking about because there's no due process at all. You're not notified that you're going to be titled. You don't know that you were titled. You could leave the military with no, not a single piece of adverse paper on your record with an honorable discharge. I mean, I've had clients call me that are stopped at borders.

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:30

Wow.

SPEAKER_03: 1:06:30

That's because there's an open federal investigation because that disposition is messed up. And to get it removed is is almost impossible. It's almost impossible to get that removed. Even if you were, even if the whole thing was a lie and everyone knows it, it was a lie. So that's a huge part of what we do in our practice is fighting those. And there isn't there's been a slight tweak. We pushed through a slight change to the language, but that's something we need to process. No one should be, particularly veterans, should be subjected to something like that without being notified and having the opportunity to respond to it. There's no correlation in the civilian system because it you have no idea that it happened, and it literally looks like you were arrested and charged with a crime.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:15

I mean, this seems like such an easy fix. Like, this seems like something that, like such a what I would say, an easy win. Like, let's let's get some wins. Like the Article 32 needs to be stronger. Let's get the titling taken care of. I did do a show on GRAP, the army uh program. And that's where I learned about titling. I had no idea. And Gilberto di Leon, he was a major advocate in that process, interviewed several times for Fox. And he was also on my show along with a lady, I can't remember her name off the top of my head, who was an advocate in that space. And that is such a ridiculous issue. And I do know there, I think there are advocates now who are working on the hill trying to undo that process and make it so that those things will get dropped if the case is dropped. So I really hope that that gets fixed. Those are those two issues what you mentioned there are just two examples of many. There's probably 10,000 more other things that we could we could talk about. But I know we're kind of getting, in fact, we're already over time. So I definitely want to try to do my best to wrap this up as much as I can because there's just so much. There is so much that we can talk about and go into in this process. But is there anything else that I didn't mention for the UCMJ that you want to mention?

SPEAKER_03: 1:08:32

No, I think I think that's those kind of those issues are ones I see as as necessary fixes that are really I think there could be a lot of agreement both sides of the aisle on getting those things done.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:44

Right, right. Well, thank you. I I I really appreciate this uh opportunity to talk to you about this. I'm going to be having, I mean, I like I tell my audience is if these issues don't get fixed, I'm just gonna keep talking about them. And I'm gonna keep having people who've been impacted by them, and I'm gonna have people who are advocating for their cases. I did forget to mention one last thing, which is what about the people who have, and this has happened, who have exhausted all remedies and they are still fighting for something. Um, do you think there'll be any way that the Department of War will take a look at some of these older cases? There have been people who've called for conviction integrity units. I mean, I'm having somebody on Tuesday, Holly Yeager, her son Robert Condon is a uh he wrote this book here, Invisible Casualty. And I've really dug into his very complicated case, and I'm going to be sharing that with my audience. And I know some of these people really want to see some review of some of these older cases. And I'm sure you have people in your practice too, that unfortunately in your mind were unjustly uh convicted and maybe serving time in the brig. And so I'm curious what your thoughts are on that.

SPEAKER_03: 1:10:03

Yeah, I think there are there are some simple things we can do, and we can certainly recognize there are people who are still suffering from from clear injustice in the military process. Um, and those things don't always get found out. I mean, the two the two cases I've been involved with, the sexual assault cases that resulted in convictions of my clients, both were overturned. Uh, one was overturned within days because we were able to demonstrate the complaining witnesses had lied and there was a different story. But the other, I mean, my clients spent over two years um in a military prison before the case was overturned. And I mean, it was a simple issue of a juror who we objected to that never should have served on the case. There was a clear bias, a clear um reason they shouldn't have served that they did anyway, and it took that. So I do think that you know, one of the things that can happen with the military justice process is because so few people in the United States actually are serving in the military, it can be such a niche area. Right. Um, you know, we need them. We need them in the military system just like we do uh in the civilian world. Yeah. Absolutely. So I do think I do think there's absolutely things that need to be done there. The the other thing I will say is just there's been such a pressure for increased conviction rates um that there have been small changes to the UCMJ, there's been small changes to review processes at other ends of the spectrum. Those are some of the things I laughed. You know, Hegseth made a joke about, well, let's go back to the 90s. And if this training wasn't necessary in the 90s, right, or this policy wasn't necessary in the 90s, then why are we doing it now? You know, I don't think we can always look back and say, oh, things were better then. But what I but what I can say is through since 2002, when I have served, the primary changes that have been made to the Uniform Code of Military Justice have all been focused on trying to make it easier for the government to get convictions, primarily in sexual assault cases. And I am not wrong when I say that. You can look at the NDAAs and you can see almost every single piece of legislation that's made a significant change to the UCMJ has been designed to make it easier for the government to get convictions. We need to just start with rolling those back and ask why would we even be doing that in the first place? If it's either a question of we're not getting proper training and resources to the investigators and the JAGs that are prosecuting these cases, or we're not taking the right cases to trial. Those are the two simple answers. It's not a problem with the Uniform Code of Military Justice. And some of the same people that have advocated for all of these changes in the 90s would have said the military justice system is, you know, is unfair. It's too easy to get a conviction. So I do think there needs to be some common sense, legitimate advocacy. And we shouldn't be afraid to review it. And we should never say, oh, that's the military. They're all they all have integrity, they all have character. Um, we don't have to look under any rocks over there. And and you and I both know that unfortunately that's not the case.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:10

Right. And there, and there have been conviction integrity units and re-reviews of cases in the civilian sector. So all we need to do is take a page from their playbook and look at some of those processes. And if some of these cases need to be re-reviewed and re- and brought up again, we need to have those honest conversations. I mean, I can tell you it it is it is baffling to me as a person who has covered people who say they were victims of a sexual assault and then people who say they were falsely accused of a sexual assault. When I covered the victims, nobody needlepicked my cases. Nobody got into my comments and started reading all the appeals and asking me a bunch of questions. But now that I'm covering more of the victims of false allegations, I'm just getting so much crap. And I'm like, why? Is there a bias? I don't understand because I I I've covered both sides of this issue. And nobody ever said to me, Well, you're only covering people who've been sexually assaulted. Because I was for years. I've had a podcast for four and a half years and I've only done five shows on victims of false allegations. I've done maybe 15, 20 shows on people who say they were victims of sexual assault. In each of those cases, I didn't see every single piece of evidence. I didn't have the record of transcript. I talked to the person, I talked to people that knew them. I assessed their credibility as a podcaster and said, you know what? I believe them. Either way, I believe that they were the victims of sexual assault or I believe that they were the victims of a false allegation. But man, the bias out there is just incredible. I mean, I'm shocked how bad it got. Like I said, it got so bad that I got kicked out of a conference. So I mean, it's it's just crazy. And that's got to stop. We've got to have be we gotta be willing and we gotta be brave in person to have these conversations. And that's what I love about what you're doing here today, Davis. So thank you so much. I know we went a little over time, but I believe this is such an important conversation.

SPEAKER_03: 1:15:09

Oh, I really enjoyed it. It was an honor to join you.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:12

Awesome, awesome. Well, I'm gonna meet you backstage to say goodbye, but I will go full screen to say goodbye to my audience. But thank you so much. Is there anything else? Oh, I forgot to say, uh, where can people find you if they're interested in going with your law firm? Uh, tell me a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_03: 1:15:28

Yeah, so we um I'm pretty active on X. It's just Davis Yons on X, as well as our website, which is the Military Council. So spelled like um S-E-L, not C I L, the Military Council.com. Um, the law firm is myself. My uh law partner is a former Army senior prosecutor who we met. I met defending an innocent uh special forces operator at Fort Bragg, believe it or not. Uh horrible allegations against him. Um, and that's how we met. And then a couple years later, we joined forces. So we're a small firm, but we focus a lot on obviously court martials investigations, a lot of records corrections as well. So the military counsel.com. You can follow me, um, DavisJans on X.

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:12

Awesome. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time today. Um, I know that you have a lot of other things to do than just talk to a podcaster. So I I really appreciate that. I will go full screen and I will say goodbye to my audience. But thank you again, Davis.

SPEAKER_03: 1:16:27

Thank you. God bless.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:28

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:29

All right, guys, that's a wrap for today. But this week I do have two podcasts. So on Thursday, I will be having Andy Lindstrom back. Andy is fighting his case pro bono with the National Guard who wrongly, who he believes, and I believe wrongly uh terminated him. And it all stemmed from him being a protector of women who were sexually harassed and some other things that he saw while he was working there. So he's still fighting the good fight and fighting his case. And so we're gonna catch up with Andy, see where he is today, and and just dig a little bit further into his case. So as I always uh stop these podcasts, uh please take care of yourselves, please take care of each other, and enjoy the rest of your Tuesday. Bye bye now.