Source: United States Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND)
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND), member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), joined Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) on a letter to U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin expressing their concern that the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD)’s recently established Countering Extremism Working Group (CEWG) could be used to target service members who voice opposition to Leftist ideology under the guise of protecting our national security interests.
“The CEWG’s tasks appear to be more in line with an intelligence collection effort focused on service members than an honest effort to improve the DoD,” the senators wrote.
In the letter, the senators pressed Secretary Austin to provide answers to the following questions:
- What type of intelligence collection will the DoD create to monitor these activities and initiatives, and who will monitor them?
- What is your plan to protect service members’ fourth amendment right to due process under the Constitution?
- What safeguards are in place to ensure the CEWG will not have a chilling effect on service members’ willingness to engage in protected political speech?
- How many extremists has the DoD found within its ranks from January 2011 to November 2021?
“Identifying and neutralizing extremist threats in, and among our service members, is an important goal,” the senators continued. “It is imperative that the Biden Administration and the DoD use existing resources to target legitimate threats, not use this working group as a cudgel to harass or silence conservative members of the armed forces.”
Senators Cramer and Rubio are joined on the letter by Senators Rick Scott (R-FL), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Mike Braun (R-IN), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Tom Cotton (R-AR), John Boozman (R-AR), Roger Marshall (R-KS), Steve Daines (R-MT), James Lankford (R-OK), and Mike Lee (R-UT).