Coffman Slams Administration For Secrecy Of Fort Hood Findings

Press Release

Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) today slammed the administration for "classifying" a key portion of the findings in the Department of Defense's (DoD) independent review of the November 5, 2009 Fort Hood massacre during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on the report. During the hearing, the DoD Independent Review Related to Fort Hood Co-chairs, former Army secretary Togo West and retired Navy Admiral Vern Clark, refused to address key questions related to Army Major Nidal Hasan's military records.

Coffman stated, "The notion of that portions of this review have been classified is offensive to me and offensive to the American people. This is just another incident in a long pattern of information before this committee that is withheld from the public which is neither germane to national security interests nor in jeopardy of impeding legal proceedings. I read the classified portion of the report and it was a finding of facts prior to the tragedy. It ought to be available to the American public. There ought to be a separate classification for "politically embarrassing" because the majority of information that is in this report and has come before this committee that has been classified has merely been classified because that's what it is, politically embarrassing."

It has been widely reported that Hasan's supervising officers sanitized his performance appraisals and turned a blind eye to glaring signals for years.

Coffman went on to ask the witnesses about the validity of implementing a counterintelligence strategy that looks at linkages and detectable patterns of behavior to try to decipher sympathies service members may have for those seeking to harm the United States.

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