Corruption Explains the F-35 Flights in a City

Senator Patrick Leahy was the ringleader of the corrupt scheme but Vermont has constitutional authority to put a stop to it

Admissions by Vermont’s senior US Senator and disclosures by Air Force insiders explain the decision to base the F-35 jets in a densely populated city location in Vermont. The admissions and disclosures were described in “Leahy and staff had central role in F-35 basing decision,” by Jasper Craven, VTDigger.org, March 5, 2018, and “As jets seem bound for Vt., questions of political influence arise,” by Bryan Bender, Boston Globe, April 14, 2013: The decision by the Air Force to base the F-35 jets at the Burlington airport was pressured by Senator Leahy, the most senior of all US Senators. According to the Globe article:

One of the Pentagon officials said in an interview that the base-selection process was deliberately “fudged’’ by military brass so that Leahy’s home state would win.

“Unfortunately Burlington was selected even before the scoring process began,” said the official, who asked that he not to be identified for fear of reprisals from his superiors. “I wish it wasn’t true, but unfortunately that is the way it is. The numbers were fudged for Burlington to come out on top. If the scoring had been done correctly Burlington would not have been rated higher.”

The reports in the Boston Globe and VTDigger were confirmed by internal emails released by the Air Force as part of discovery in a 2014 lawsuit brought by Winooski and South Burlington residents under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The internal Air Force emails document dozens of interventions by Senator Leahy and his staffers to pressure the Air Force decision. Including pressure to falsify data. The internal emails also show Vermont National Guard leaders vigorously interfering and fudging data. (p. 21-30 of the Air Force internal emails).

The internal emails and a news article in the Burlington Free Press, “Leahy, Sanders & Welch stand by Vermont F-35 basing advocacy,” also show lock-step support for Leahy’s pressure campaign by US Senator Bernie Sanders and Congressman Peter Welch. The internal emails and the news article document a concerted, coordinated, and illegitimate campaign by Vermont’s top political and military leaders to foist the F-35 basing on thousands of Vermont families.

The result of that illicit campaign is pain, injuries, and distress for Vermonters as reported in 470 online F-35 Summer Report and Complaint Forms and in an article in VTDigger, "Panic attacks. Ringing ears. Shaking walls. Happy 1-year anniversary to the F-35s."

In addition, tens of millions of federal dollars were wasted upgrading Vermont National Guard facilities for the F-35 basing in a city.

The internal emails show that the pressure Leahy exerted to base the F-35 jets in a densely populated city location was both essential and effective to get the Air Force to put aside the facts the Air Force itself disclosed in the EIS.

The pressure also prevailed over specific military law principles described in directives, instructions, policies, and doctrine issued by the Department of Defense and the Air Force, all of which require military forces to avoid harming civilians. Both the basing of F-35 jets in a city and the hundreds of F-35 training flights each month in a city flagrantly violate those principles.

The internal emails and statements in the Air Force Environmental Impact Statement clearly showed the Air Force preference to base the F-35 jets at a location remote from cities and towns full of civilians. But that preference was thwarted both when Leahy exerted the pressure and when top Air Force officials accepted the Leahy pressure. The internal emails show that the integrity of the Air Force’s EIS process was crushed by the Leahy intervention.

The government sponsored injury to civilians tramples Constitutional rights of Vermonters. Federal and state laws are violated. And the discipline for the state national guard prescribed by Congress and by the Department of Defense regulations are being defied. Illicit military activity in a city that can be traced back to that data fudging and that corrupt pressured decision.

To root out and prevent any more such corruption, an independent and impartial criminal investigation is needed to determine the truth and, if violation of law is found, to punish the perpetrators, no matter how high they may be in Vermont’s political and military leadership.

Vermont has the power to stop the F-35 training flights in a city

Noteworthy is that Leahy’s pressure over the Air Force decision to base the F-35 jets in the city location was only one of the illicit steps required. Another is the ongoing collaboration by the governor and legislative leaders.

An article will be posted here tomorrow showing how the US Constitution divided powers over the state national guards between federal and state officials. In brief, the purpose of that division of powers was to prevent just the sort of tyranny now being foisted on Vermont families living in the F-35 noise danger zone. While the federal government has authority over arming the Guard, the constitution reserves to the states the authority of training the Guard. The illicit and corruptly decided F-35 training flights over Vermont cities and towns can be stopped solely by action of the state of Vermont using its constitutional authority over the training of the state’s national guard.