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Floor Speech

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Mr. GRAHAM. I think we are making some real progress here.

The one thing I don't like is basically taking the commander out of the loop when it comes to military justice in a fashion that basically says we can't trust our commanders to discipline their forces. A lot of the crimes that are being proposed here to be taken out of the military justice system have nothing to do with sexual assault.

The theory is that our commanders are discriminatory, that there is racial bias in the system, and that we have a biased military justice system based on the color of your skin. Quite frankly, I don't believe that, and I am never going to say that. That would be taking us down that road.

What Senators Inhofe and Reed have done, I think, makes a lot of sense. We have added to the list of crimes that would get special scrutiny--I think it is murder, kidnapping, and one other beyond the sexual assault crimes.

When there is an allegation of sexual assault, there will be a new process that goes into whether or not the case goes to trial. One of the issues is, who should pick the jury? Well, the prosecutor can't pick the jury, the special prosecutor. You can't have the prosecutor picking the jury. The convening authority, the commander in charge of the units in question, will still be picking the jury, but the lawyers can strike members of the jury for cause and preemptory challenges. At the end of the day, I think we made a lot of progress.

Senator Gillibrand's bill goes well beyond the stated purpose of what got us talking about this. I think it would destroy the military justice system as we know it and destroy the role of the commander. And, again, our commanders are the ones who decide who takes the most risks. Our commanders, again, have a lot of responsibility. They need to have the tools to make sure that unit is fit to fight. They will be under scrutiny, as they should be. But we want a military justice system that makes the military the most effective fighting force in the world, and you can't have a strong military without a strong command structure.

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