{"id":1374609,"date":"2022-03-13T15:00:49","date_gmt":"2022-03-13T19:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1374609"},"modified":"2022-03-13T19:05:50","modified_gmt":"2022-03-13T23:05:50","slug":"military-reserves-officer-allegedly-falsified-recommendation-letters-for-afghans-seeking-special-visas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/military-reserves-officer-allegedly-falsified-recommendation-letters-for-afghans-seeking-special-visas\/","title":{"rendered":"Military Reserves Officer Allegedly Falsified Recommendation Letters For Afghans Seeking Special Visas"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fmilitary-reserves-officer-allegedly-falsified-recommendation-letters-for-afghans-seeking-special-visas%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1374609&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2022\/03\/GettyImages-1234596561.jpeg?w=1200&#038;h=800&#038;ixlib=react-9.3.0\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>A Commander in the U.S. Navy Reserves from Florida appeared in court Friday on criminal charges brought forth by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) alleging that he was involved in a bribery scheme aimed at securing special visas for Afghan nationals.<\/p>\n<p>Jeromy Pittmann, a 53-year-old from Pensacola, Florida, is now living in Naples, Italy. Court documents say he was paid by Afghan citizens to \u201cdraft, submit, or falsely verify\u201d recommendation letters for those seeking Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs) through the U.S. Department of State, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/opa\/pr\/us-navy-reserves-officer-appeared-charges-alleged-bribery-and-visa-fraud\">according<\/a> to a DOJ press release.<\/p>\n<p>SIVs are in a limited supply and <a href=\"https:\/\/travel.state.gov\/content\/travel\/en\/us-visas\/immigrate\/special-immg-visa-afghans-employed-us-gov.html\">given<\/a> to Afghans serving as translators for personnel in the U.S. military. The Department of Defense notably <a href=\"https:\/\/media.defense.gov\/2022\/Feb\/17\/2002940841\/-1\/-1\/1\/DODIG-222-065.PDF\">released<\/a> a report last month acknowledging that the National Counter-Terrorism Center did not properly vet Afghan evacuees amid the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan \u2014 with about 34,500 SIVs being given to Afghans since 2014, the report noted. The defense department said it does \u201cnot have a role in enrolling, screening, or overseeing\u201d parolees being housed at temporary housing facilities in the U.S.<\/p>\n<p>Pittmann faces up to 2o years in prison for allegedly accepting bribes and conspiring to commit visa fraud. It is alleged that he signed and authorized more than 20 fraudulent letters claiming that he \u201csupervised\u201d Afghan applicants for SIVs while they were translators for NATO and the U.S. Army.<\/p>\n<p>He allegedly received thousands of dollars in return for such authorization, putting forth that \u201cthe applicants\u2019 lives were in jeopardy because the Taliban considered them to be traitors; and that he did not think the applicants posed a threat to the national security of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The case is being investigated by SIGAR, which is the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. Navy did not immediately respond to The Daily Wire\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fairus.org\/issue\/federal-legislation\/legal-immigration\/fair-issue-brief-afghanistan\">report<\/a> by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (<span class=\"caps\">FAIR<\/span>) in August 2021 provided evidence of the Biden administration\u2019s failures to manage SIV applicants and reduce fraud. FAIR\u2019s report cited government data showing 84% of SIV applicants were found ineligible during the first three months of 2021.<\/p>\n<p>The state department had notably said Afghan SIV application fraud was \u201crelatively high compared to other countries and programs,\u201d underscored by as many as 200,000 Afghans being demanded U.S. admission by activists, with 50,000 unvetted, according to the FAIR report.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Related:<\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"css-p8ym73\"><i>Enter for the chance to hang out with Gina Carano at the premiere of her new Daily Wire movie, Terror on the Prairie! Two lucky Daily Wire members will be given the complete red carpet treatment \u2013 free airfare, hotel, premiere car service, and exclusive merch. Daily Wire members can click <a class=\"gmail-c-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/redcarpet\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>\u00a0to enter for a chance to win. If you\u2019re not a Daily Wire member yet, click\u00a0<a class=\"gmail-c-link\" href=\"http:\/\/dailywire.com\/subscribe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a> to join us so you can win this once-in-a-lifetime experience.<\/i><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Commander in the U.S. Navy Reserves from Florida appeared in court Friday on criminal charges brought forth by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) alleging that he was involved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1374609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1374609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1374609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1374609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1374609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1374609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1374609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}