This has been brewing up in the Great White North:
A federal investigation into rape and fraud allegations in the Alaska National Guard has found shocking abuses. Two state officials have now resigned and the governor is on the defensive about what he knew with only a few weeks left before election day. Alaska Public Media's Alexandra Gutierrez reports.
ALEXANDRA GUTIERREZ: The findings were worse than expected. Sexual assault reports were mishandled. Recruiting officers took advantage of young women. Military helicopters were used for personal reasons. And money was embezzled from the Guard's family assistance programs. Now, Alaska Governor Sean Parnell is being questioned about why he took so long to investigate the Guard when he first received complaints four years ago.
SEAN PARNELL: I'm sorry it did. It's not - that's not acceptable.
Want more details? The
Anchorage Dispatch News was
happy to oblige with a front-page Sunday paper splash:
The Alaska Army National Guard’s Recruiting and Retention Battalion, a unit with access to high school students around the state and a budget to attend or sponsor popular outdoor events, has been, for years, a center of repeated sexual misconduct among its officers, according to investigative files.
The files describe a unit in which officers prowled the lists of new recruits for sex, routinely cheated on their wives, drank to excess, went to strip clubs, chiseled the government with their official credit cards and made a habit of making leering and demeaning comments about women, including their fellow soldiers. The files were prepared between 2010 and 2014 in a largely failed effort by a few officers to mark the leaders of the battalion with the stain of an other-than-honorable discharge.
Officers in the battalion had sex with other soldiers and civilians on the chairs and desks of their recruiting offices, in their government cars, in the woods near Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson and in the RVs they brought to official events, the reports say.
The files described bullying of civilians by guard officers. Four women said that when they attended Dimond High School in Anchorage, they resisted a guard recruiter who tried to give them alcohol. One former student described what sounded like an attempt by the officer to groom her for sex. She said she had to jump from the recruiter’s car when he tried to take her home, calling her father for help from a stranger’s phone.
The issue has blown up big in the state. Schools have
banned Guard
recruiters. Anchorage police are still opening up
new investigations.
And while this has put the incumbent Republican governor on the defensive, in a race he already trails, it's now making the leap to the Senate race, where Republican Attorney General Dan Sullivan narrowly leads incumbent Democrat Mark Begich in recent polling. From last night's local news:
Did Senate candidate Dan Sullivan know about the allegations of sexual assault and fraud in the Alaska National Guard? Sullivan was attorney general at the time Governor Parnell found out about the problems within the guard. KTVA 11's Kate McPherson joins us with more. US Senate candidate Dan Sullivan won't answer our questions regarding the national guard and whether he was informed about the allegations.
We haven't endorsed in any Alaska races this cycle. You can donate to Mark Begich directly at his website. However, this is just one front in the GOP's effort to take the Senate. You can help fight back by contributing to at least one of our endorsed Senate candidates.
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Television ads don't much move the needle these days. Scandals like this one? All bets are off. Particularly when Republicans look the other way as children are targeted.