Lawmakers outraged as allegations against soldier said to include sexual assault, forced prostitution

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The allegations against the latest military official accused of sexual assault include claims that he may have arranged for a woman to engage in prostitution, sources say. 

The charges have sparked outrage on Capitol Hill, as it emerged the accused soldier, whose name has not been made public, was assigned as a coordinator of a battalion-level sexual assault prevention program at Fort Hood. He has been suspended from all duties but has not been charged with any crime. 

It is the second time in the last month that a military official who led a sexual assault prevention unit was accused of sexual assault. 

The nature of the accusations is still unclear. A source on Capitol Hill told Fox News the investigation includes allegations of forcing one woman into prostitution and sexually assaulting two others. 

A defense official told The Associated Press the allegations include a claim that the soldier may have arranged for one of the women to have sex for money. This official said it's not yet clear whether the woman was forced into that arrangement. 

George Little, spokesman for Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, said Hagel has informed President Obama about the accusations against the Army sergeant first class, and Obama made clear he wants the behavior stopped. 

Little told reporters that Hagel's staff is working on a written directive that will spell out steps aimed at resolving a problem that has outraged lawmakers. 

"The president has made very clear his expectations on this issue," Little said. 

Lawmakers are calling for changes in the wake of the allegations. 

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., on Wednesday called for Hagel to create a tougher review process for individuals applying for sexual assault prevention unit positions. 

"This crisis has reached a breaking point that requires more than the traditional process for filling military jobs," they wrote in a letter Wednesday. 

Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said in a statement: "This latest incident clearly demonstrates that the military's efforts to prevent sexual assault are failing miserably." 

The case, along with another one involving an Air Force officer, highlights a problem that is drawing increased scrutiny in Congress and expressions of frustration from Hagel. 

"This is sickening. Twice now, in a matter of as many weeks, we've seen the very people charged with protecting victims of sexual assault being charged as perpetrators," Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said. 

Hagel said he was directing all the services to retrain, re-credential and rescreen all sexual assault prevention and response personnel and military recruiters, Little said after Tuesday's announcement that the Army sergeant was accused of pandering, abusive sexual contact, assault and maltreatment of subordinates. 

The soldier was being investigated by the Army Criminal Investigation Command. No charges had been filed, but officials say they expect them fairly soon. 

Little said Hagel was angry and disappointed at "these troubling allegations and the breakdown in discipline and standards they imply." He said Hagel had met with Army Secretary John McHugh and ordered him to "fully investigate this matter rapidly, to discover the extent of these allegations and to ensure that all of those who might be involved are dealt with appropriately." 

The Fort Hood soldier had been assigned as an equal opportunity adviser and coordinator of a sexual harassment-assault prevention program at the Army's 3rd Corps headquarters when the allegation arose, the Army said. 

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard P. "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., said in a statement he was "outraged and disgusted by the reports out of Fort Hood." 

Just last week an Air Force officer who headed a sexual assault prevention office was himself arrested on charges of groping a woman in a Northern Virginia parking lot. 

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said his panel was considering a number of measures to counter the problem, including changes to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and will act on them next month. 

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said she intends to present new legislation on Thursday to overhaul the military justice system by removing chain-of-command influence from prosecution of sex abuse crimes. 

The Pentagon is struggling with what it calls a growing number of sexual assaults across the military. In a report last week, the Defense Department estimated that as many as 26,000 military members may have been sexually assaulted last year, based on survey results. 

Of those, fewer than 3,400 reported the incidents, and nearly 800 of those simply sought help and declined to file formal complaints against their alleged attackers. 

There also is an ongoing investigation into more than 30 Air Force instructors for assaults on trainees at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, as well as the recent arrest of the Air Force's head of sexual assault prevention on charges of groping a woman. 

An Arlington County, Va., police report said Air Force Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski was drunk and grabbed a woman's breast and buttocks in a parking lot earlier this month. The woman fought him off and called police, the report said. A judge has set a July 18 trial date for Krusinski. 

Such cases and two recent decisions by officers to overturn military juries' guilty verdicts in sexual assault cases has precipitated a storm of criticism on Capitol Hill. 

McCaskill is holding up the nomination of Air Force Lt. Gen. Susan Helms, tapped to serve as vice commander of the U.S. Space Command, until McCaskill gets more information about Helms' decision to overturn a jury conviction in a sexual assault case. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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New IRS scandal revives past allegations against agency

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WASHINGTON –  The IRS’s admission it targeted conservative groups for special scrutiny has drawn political condemnation but it isn’t the first, second or third time the agency has been accused of playing fast and loose with the law.

The latest scandal has effectively revived past allegations of partisan behavior at the IRS, with some lawmakers as well as the alleged victims calling for those complaints to now get a second look. The unresolved cases include claims of media leaks on private donor information during last year’s presidential race and other instances of political profiling.

"This whole episode reinforces and confirms the American people’s worst fears about big government run amok,” Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., told Fox News. 

"The startling revelations give real credibility to numerous reports over the last year that the IRS 'inadvertently' released donor information from conservative groups -- and that information ended up in the hands of political opponents," Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., who is pressing the Treasury Department and IRS for more details on those past cases, said in a statement.  

The newest allegations of the IRS overstepping its authority only feed into claims that those within the powerful agency routinely disregard the law and use their authority to intimidate and target at will. 

The latest startling claim came Tuesday from an unexpected source -- ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning progressive journalism group -- which said the same Cincinnati IRS branch accused of targeting conservative groups released nine confidential applications of conservative groups to them last year. 

Critics had long questioned how ProPublica got that information. ProPublica put the speculation to rest on Tuesday. The media outlet said it had requested 67 applications for nonprofits in 2012. They were given 31. Of those, nine had not been approved and therefore should not have been made public.

ProPublica ultimately published six of them, despite late-breaking objections from the IRS -- the agency apparently told the organization that it should not have received the confidential applications. 

Considering this and other cases, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney took some heat Tuesday after he told reporters that nobody in the Obama administration had targeted conservative groups in the past. 

Many questioned the statement and pointed to a 2010 incident involving Austan Goolsbee, Obama’s former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. Goolsbee told reporters on Aug. 27, 2010 that Koch Industries, a billion-dollar energy company run by the politically influential Koch brothers, paid no income taxes.

The tax records of Koch Industries -- a private company – would not have been public information and therefore should not have been known to Goolsbee. At the time, the Obama team backpedaled and said the information was made public in two places – which turned out to be untrue. Then the Obama administration said Goolsbee had misspoken and that he had guessed the company’s confidential tax information.

At the time, the IRS had promised to look into the Goolsbee gaffe but a report was never publicly released.

A source familiar with the situation suggested to FoxNews.com Tuesday that Goolsbee’s comments were a “calculated” attempt by the administration to insert Koch’s name into his discussion about companies that don’t pay taxes.

Accusations of improper IRS behavior surfaced again in 2012 when a prominent anti-gay marriage group accused the agency of leaking private tax files that listed then-presidential candidate Mitt Romney's group as a contributor. The National Organization for Marriage documents were later published by a group whose president was tied to the Obama re-election campaign.

NOM claimed that someone from the IRS fed the liberal Human Rights Campaign documents listing its 2008 contributors. On that list was a $10,000 donation from Romney’s political action committee. The Human Rights Campaign then published the documents online, saying it had uncovered one of the group’s “top secret donors,” and accused Romney of attacking lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality.

The donation came as NOM and other conservative groups were fighting for the Proposition 8 measure banning gay marriage in California. 

Conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation said they, too, were targets of the IRS.

“We endured politically-motivated audits under both the Carter and the Clinton administrations,” Heritage senior media associate Kim McIntyre told Fox News. “Back then, Washington’s ‘enemy lists’ were restricted to well-established groups. But targeting fledging Tea Party groups is different.”

McIntyre questioned whether smaller groups targeted by the IRS can even afford to fight back and says that “expensive audits could very well strangle them in a cradle. Bringing the weight and resources of the federal government to bear against small organizations threatens not just punishment, but extinction.” 

Some say the allegations against the IRS are not a surprise given the agency’s storied past of mean-spirited power plays that stretch back to President Franklin Roosevelt -- accused of using his political sway to get the independent agency to lean on his critics.  

President Kennedy’s administration authorized the “Ideological Organizations Project” that went after conservative organizations, while President Johnson was accused of promising tax favors in exchange for votes.

Claims of shady moves made by IRS saw a sharp rise in the 1960s and 1970s. Some say the agency has not been able to shake off the bad rap.

The IRS now says that its latest program of flagging conservative groups for additional scrutiny was inappropriate, but not partisan. An inspector general report unveiled Tuesday urged the IRS to clean up its operation, and Attorney General Eric Holder also announced he had “ordered an investigation” into the IRS controversy and that his office was “examining the facts to see if there were criminal violations.”

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