Army Leaders Conspire to Destroy Soldier Whistleblower

Army Leaders Conspire to Destroy Soldier Whistleblower

While DOJ seems to have long been compromised in its treatment of political opponents, the United States military, which I was a proud member of for more than 31 years, would never intentionally demonize anyone who disagreed with military policy or who blew the whistle on the military’s occasional foibles, right?

Wrong.

From Breitbart News comes the story of two Army officers who conspired to destroy the career, if not the person himself, of an Army warrant officer who blew the whistle on military issues, including the military’s shameful COVID vaccination policies:

Exclusive: General, West Point Professor Ran Shadow Investigation to Hunt Down and Silence Military Whistleblower for Mean Tweets

An Army three-star general and a West Point associate professor used government resources in an unofficial investigation to hunt down and punish an anonymous active-duty whistleblower who criticized Army leaders and the Biden administration on social media, according to private emails and text messages obtained exclusively by Breitbart News.

Army Training and Doctrine Command Deputy Commander Lt. Gen. Maria Gervais and Army Maj. Jessica Dawson — who is also an “information warfare research scientist” at the Army Cyber Institute — used their official authority and access to government resources to track down the whistleblower and get him identified publicly and punished by his chain of command.

Despite the lack of evidence, they repeatedly accused the whistleblower of being a “counterintelligence” and “insider threat” in a seeming effort to trigger action by Army Criminal Investigative Division (CID) — an independent federal law enforcement agency with expansive powers designed to investigate serious felonies.

Pat Wier, a civilian defense attorney and Navy reservist, said a CID investigation would require an assumption or designation of a serious threat and called Gervais and Dawson’s trumping up of accusations for exercising free speech rights “wrongful.”

“His alleged actions did not rise to the level of a serious crime, or any crime at all,” he said.

Rather, it appeared to be an attempt by rogue military officials seeking to use the levers of government to punish political dissent.

Gervais and Dawson ran their shadow investigation for nearly a year, enlisting help from a mob of online associates consisting of progressive current and former members of the military who disagreed with the whistleblower politically.

Their efforts led to the doxxing — or public “outing” — of the suspected whistleblower’s identity and an Army two-star general’s former aide filing an inspector general complaint against him, a weaponization of the IG system in retaliation for critical social media posts.

That complaint then sparked an investigation into the whistleblower by his chain of command (what is known as a 15-6 investigation). The investigating officer found that the suspected whistleblower, Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Samuel Shoemate, had violated Army Regulation 600-20 by “posting derogatory and disrespectful images/memes on multiple social accounts … towards different Senior Officials and Military Leaders.”

It also found that Shoemate violated Uniform Code of Military Justice Articles 88 (Contempt towards Senior Officials), 89 (Disrespect toward Superior Commissioned Officers, 133 (Conduct Unbecoming of an Officer and Gentleman), and DOD Instruction 5400.17 Official Use of Social Media for Public Affairs Purposes.

The investigating officer recommended “appropriate adverse administrative action and/or appropriate UCMJ action” against Shoemate. He ultimately was given a General Officer Memorandum of Reprimand — essentially a letter of reprimand. He retired from the Army on Tuesday, August 1, 2023.

So what did Shoemate do that was so….criminal?

First, he broke the story last September, after being contacted by military members, that USS Nimitz (CVN-68) had inadvertently leaked jet fuel into the ship’s water supply, sickening 11 sailors. Worse yet, the ship didn’t even notify crew members until six hours after the leakage was discovered. Shoemate’s story became national news because of his reporting.

Next, Shoemate “provided information for troops who opposed the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate for the military.” He also in this regard broke the story that the DOD’s own Inspector General “had warned Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin he was potentially violating federal law by not properly considering requests for [religious] accommodation.” This story also became national news because of Shoemate’s reporting.

But what appears to have broken the camel’s back as regards Shoemate’s whistleblowing is his reporting about an Army Major General named Patrick Donahoe, the Commanding General at Fort Benning in Georgia, who was a strong advocate for COVID vaccinations. Shoemate reported about an online dustup between Donahoe and a Marine who criticized Donahoe’s COVID vaccine advocacy, leading to Donahoe being negatively profiled on Tucker Carlson’s prior Fox News program. In fact, Donahoe himself was later investigated by the Army’s IG for various issues, “including social media misconduct and interaction with a junior female officer.”

Apparently Shoemate’s reporting on Donahoe was too much for Lieutenant General Gervais and her cohort, West Point professor Jessica Dawson, who took it upon themselves to coordinate a year-long investigation into Shoemate’s activities and identity. Their activities in digging into Shoemate’s online actions are a long and sordid tale, and I encourage you to read the whole thing, but basically they scrounged up whatever they could find, including attempts to get their hands on Shoemate’s confidential military personnel file, and sent it to anyone and everyone who might listen, including “a DOD cybersecurity contractor,” “the chief of the Joint Staff Insider Threat Hub,” and “the Army Insider Threat program manager.” Gervais herself stated that “she would ‘talk directly’ to the chief of Army CID, Greg Ford. ‘I’ll talk directly to Greg Ford tomorrow at CID,’ she said.” She also said she would talk to the Army IG, who was a “good friend” – i.e. the same Army IG was is supposed to be an impartial, independent investigator.

The Army’s IG investigation triggered Shoemate’s command to conduct its own investigation, leading to his early retirement and a letter of reprimand.

Interestingly, while working to railroad Shoemate out of the service, Dawson and Gervais discussed how they might keep their work hidden from media, and Congressional, scrutiny:

In an undated direct message to Gervais, Dawson discussed hiding their efforts from the media — naming Breitbart News specifically — and Congress.

“I know the numbers say this is only a small number but when they’re getting cited by breitbart and trigger national news firestorms, might be time to relook,” she said.

“And if [Shoemate] writes a post saying the army is investigating him for whistleblowing, breitbart et al will set that narrative and we’ll have congress intervening again. And that’s assuming there’s actually an investigation.”

And lest you think Shoemate was some disaffected dirtbag who deserved to get drummed out of the Army, consider this from a recent Officer Evaluation Report (OER):

[Shoemate’s] conduct within the unit was always above reproach, and he fostered an environment that empowered Soldiers, free from sexual harassment or discrimination of any kind. His desire to develop a robust and cohesive team was evidence in the respectful way he approach every interaction and conversation with each member of the team.

The OER also said Shoemate “lived, and reinforced, the Army Values, daily.” Shoemate also had a flawless military record.

So who are Jessica Dawson and Lieutenant General Maria Gervais?

Well, first, Army Major Jessica Dawson, from her personal website:

I’m an Academy Professor at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

My research interests focus on nationalism, white supremacy and extremism, religion and what binds people together, guns and the role of American civil religion as well as the digital disruption of technology on aspects of society.

I’m also the Director for the EXCEL scholars program, designed to provide mentorship and support for under represented minorities pursing academic excellence in post graduate scholarships.

Second, Lieutenant General Maria Gervais is the Deputy Commander of the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command. This command, known as Tradoc and whose tagline is Victory Starts Here, “recruits, trains, educates, develops and builds the Army; establishes standards, drives improvement, and leads change to ensure the Army can deter, fight, and win on any battlefield now and into the future.”

So you would expect General Gervais to be an expert, as Deputy Commander of Tradoc, in all things “Army,” right? Well, not so much. As reported in American Military News, Gervais tweeted a picture of dozens of soldiers packed together on a transport plane and captioned the tweet “This picture is worth 1000 words—thanks to these American hero’s #Grateful.” The only problem was the soldiers were British, not American, as was obvious from their unique camouflage uniforms and British rifles, the SA80, not the American M4.

Not every day you correct a 3 Star… pic.twitter.com/kv32pLFFU0

— Gray Connolly (@GrayConnolly) September 5, 2021

This is an incredible own. This is your military brass, America: illiterate and unable to tell US from UK troops. https://t.co/Um5j23WoGK

— Sohrab Ahmari (@SohrabAhmari) September 5, 2021

Yikes. A 3 star general at that. My Marines woulda' submitted my retirement papers for me if I did that.🤦‍♀️

Maybe that's why the military left so many Americans behind – the generals didn't recognize them.

— Gunnery Sergeant Jessie Jane Duff (@JessieJaneDuff) September 4, 2021

In addition to being unable to tell British from American troops, General Gervais recently stated, in discussing the Army’s miserable recruiting numbers, which we have reported on here: Military Recruitment Crisis Underway as Biden Admin Continues Emphasis on Wokeness, Vaccine Mandates, and here: Woke Military Struggling to Reach Recruitment Goals, that the solution was, not reducing the “woke” policies negatively impacting recruiting, but…wait for it…the Metaverse!!!!!!!! I’m not kidding:

The next Army recruiting tool amid a slump? It could be the metaverse:

The U.S. Army must embrace online tactics and virtual worlds to attract younger generations and retain them as soldiers, the deputy commanding general of Training and Doctrine Command said, as the service is again expected to miss its recruitment goals.

Lt. Gen. Maria Gervais on May 21 told attendees of the GEOINT Symposium in St. Louis that the Army, the military’s largest branch, must “leverage immersive-type environments to expand awareness of the numerous opportunities available when you serve,” especially in a recruiting environment that is “the toughest it has ever been since the inception of the all-volunteer force 50 years ago.”

The service missed its fiscal 2022 recruiting goal by roughly 15,000 new soldiers, leaving it shorthanded. Another shortfall is expected for 2023.

Among the most promising new technologies that could help reverse the trend, Gervais said, is the metaverse: a heady subject that is different things to different people, but boils down to the meshing of in-hand peripherals with immersive digital spaces, social interaction from wherever and an online presence foreign to older crowds.

“We already do some things, but our reach is extremely limited. And we need to do better connecting with our younger generations,” Gervais said. “The metaverse could be a way to extend our reach, improve our brand awareness through advertisement placement, and creating an experience, which could pique the interest and expand the awareness of serving in the military for our youth.”

Could she be any more clueless??

All I can say is that if these are the people teaching and leading our troops, we are in even more dire straits military-wise than I thought.

Fortunately, Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-Fl.) has pledged to investigate Dawson and Gervais’ conduct regarding Shoemate:

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) confirmed his office will be looking into the matter.

“From the Department of Justice to our own military, our government has been weaponized by corrupt bureaucrats in order to target Americans who disagree with their leftist agenda,” Gaetz said.

“Lieutenant General Maria Gervais and West Point Assistant Professor Major Jessica Dawson should be ashamed of themselves for abusing official resources to doxx and target anonymous whistleblowers. Their actions should warrant an inquiry by the House Armed Services Committee, and I’ll be urging Chairman Mike Rogers to take action.”

I make no comment on whether Shoemate’s online activities violated military policies. They may have, although they don’t appear to have done so to me, and they certainly don’t appear criminal, but all that had to happen is a quick phone call to his Commanding Officer with a word about what had been going on, not a year-long, almost military-wide, clandestine jihad against an outstanding service member.

It’s also sad, because I used to be a pretty big advocate for kids that wanted to go to the U.S. Naval Academy, like I had done. I would now, under this administration, never suggest to anyone that they attend the Naval Academy, or join the military in any capacity whatsoever.

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