According to the media, US Army Lt. Gen. Maria Gervais and Maj. Jessica Dawson utilized their military authorities and access to investigate and publicly identify the service member, citing private emails and text messages.
Gervais, the deputy commander of the US Army’s Training and Doctrine Command, partnered with Dawson, an information warfare researcher at the Army Cyber Institute, to conduct the unauthorized investigation.
The two Army officials accused the whistleblower of being a counterintelligence threat to the United States from the inside, the report claimed. The accusations appear to have been part of an effort to get the Army Criminal Investigation Division to open an official probe into the matter, according to the statement.
The nearly year-long investigation led to the public identification of the whistleblower, who then had an inspector general complaint filed against them, the report said. The probe also led to an investigation by the whistleblower’s chain of command, the news agency noted.
The alleged whistleblower, Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Samuel Shoemate, was found to have violated Uniform Code of Military Justice provisions banning service members from posting derogatory and disrespectful materials online toward senior US officials and military leaders, the media stated.
The probe resulted in a letter of reprimand, although Shoemate retired from the US Army on Tuesday.
"A lieutenant general colluding with various other senior officials to conduct their own unofficial investigation, with the use of government resources, is emblematic of larger, systemic abuses observed within the DOD in recent years," Shoemate is quoted as saying in the report.
It appears that senior officers and officials are allowed to act with impunity, Shoemate stressed.
Gervais and Dawson’s unofficial investigation into Shoemate constitutes an "unlawful command influence" and tainted the official probe, civilian defense attorney and Navy reservist Pat Wier added.
US Congressman Matt Gaetz is now investigating the matter as a potential abuse of official resources, the news agency noted. Gaetz believes the matter warrants an inquiry by the full House Armed Services Committee and will be urging the panel’s chairman to pursue such an investigation, according to the media.