The sailor, who has not been identified, searched the name “Joseph Biden” in Military Health System Genesis, the armed service’s health record database, and a co-worker reported it as a violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, otherwise known as HIPPA, according to a Navy official.

Presidential healthcare is provided by the military’s White House Medical Unit, and presidents receive treatment at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland.

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service launched an investigation upon learning of the sailor’s action, and that probe concluded on April 24.

A Navy official told Military Times the sailor was administratively disciplined for the act and was assigned to Navy Medicine Readiness and Training Command at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, at the time.

The official declined to share the sailor’s rank or the nature of the discipline.

“At no time was the president’s personal information compromised,” Pentagon spokesman Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters on Tuesday. “The record that the sailor inappropriately accessed was not the electronic health record of the President of the United States.”

Ryder added that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was notified of the attempted breach when the Navy became aware of the sailor’s actions.

Pentagon disclosure of the sailor’s effort to access Biden’s medical records come as questions circulate about the president’s mental acuity and fitness to run for re-election, particularly after the 81-year-old’s seemingly confused and muddled performance at a debate with Republican candidate Donald Trump last month.

Asked Tuesday if Austin ever questioned Biden’s decision-making abilities as commander-in-chief due to potential health conditions, Ryder answered with a quick “no.”

“We have had that discussion with the secretary in terms of monitoring all the coverage that’s out there these days,” Ryder said. “The secretary has full confidence in the president’s leadership as he has had from day one.”

The Russian state-sponsored hacker infiltrated a Microsoft platform called Microsoft Azure Government, which provides storage, databases and other services to the VA and other government agencies.

VA press secretary Terrence Hayes told Military Times in an email that the server was breached “for just one second, presumably to see if the credentials worked” by a group called Midnight Blizzard, or Nobelium, which has ties to the Russian government, according to Microsoft.

“After investigating the matter, we determined that no patient data was compromised,” Hayes told Military Times. “VA found that Midnight Blizzard used a single set of stolen credentials to access a Microsoft Cloud test environment around January. … We are continuing to look into this matter with Microsoft to ensure that all veteran patient data remains protected and that we are not compromised in the future.”

Stars and Stripes previously reported the hack.

Microsoft said the attack originally targeted corporate email accounts within the company, including the company’s senior leadership, in an effort to find information related to the group Midnight Blizzard itself. The hacker used a spray attack, which involves using a variety of predictable, simple passwords to try and gain access to an account, according to Microsoft.

“The attack was not the result of a vulnerability in Microsoft products or services,” Microsoft officials said in a January statement. “To date, there is no evidence that the threat actor had any access to customer environments, production systems, source code or AI systems.”

Hayes told Stars and Stripes that the attack was unrelated to a Feb. 21 hack, which involved a private vendor, Change Healthcare, responsible for processing health care payments.

That attack included an expansive breach of the U.S. health care system, possibly including the VA. Fifteen million veterans were notified that their private health care information could have been compromised, Veterans Affairs Sec. Denis McDonough said in April.

The cybersecurity attack also included the Peace Corps and the U.S. Agency for Global Media, an independent news group of the federal government that produces Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Free Asia, according to Stars and Stripes.

Every year the Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly awards show, or ESPYs, honors one individual with an award in memory of Pat Tillman, a former NFL safety who enlisted in the Army following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Tillman was killed on April 22, 2004, in a friendly fire incident while deployed to Afghanistan. He was 27 years old.

The late soldier’s mother, Mary Tillman, told the Daily Mail she was not consulted by ESPN on the award decision. Tillman called ESPN’s selection of Prince Harry, who left royal duties and moved to California with his wife Meghan Markle, a “controversial” and “divisive” choice.

“There are recipients that are far more fitting,” Tillman told the Daily Mail, which was first to report on the controversy. “There are individuals working in the veteran community that are doing tremendous things to assist veterans. … These individuals do not have the money, resources, connections or privilege that Prince Harry has. I feel that those types of individuals should be [recognized].”

Last Friday on his ESPN show, Pat McAfee said the network was “obviously trying to piss people off” by selecting Prince Harry. As of Tuesday, an online petition asking ESPN to reconsider the selection had garnered more than 45,000 signatures.

In a statement announcing the awardees, ESPN highlighted the former prince’s 10 years of service in the British Armed Forces as an Apache helicopter pilot, which included two tours of duty in Afghanistan, and creation of the Invictus Games Foundation to help wounded and injured service members compete in athletics.

Last year the award was presented to the Buffalo Bills training staff for life-saving actions taken when Bills safety Damar Hamlin went into cardiac arrest during a game.

The 2024 ESPYs will air July 11.

Paul J. Freeman, 68, of Niceville, Florida, was charged with four counts of illegally retaining information regarding Air Force aircraft and weapon systems and five counts of sharing it with unauthorized personnel, according to a federal indictment unsealed on June 27. If convicted, Freeman would face a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison per charge.

“Freeman, on multiple occasions between November 2020 and March 2021, transmitted classified national defense information about United States Air Force aircraft and weapons to people not authorized to access the information,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Florida said in a statement.

Court documents argue Freeman “had reason to believe [the information] could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation.” It’s unclear how Freeman accessed those details or with whom they were shared.

Freeman was arrested by the FBI June 27, court documents show. The case is set to head to trial Aug. 5.

The announcement comes as the U.S. military recovers from one of the largest intelligence breaches in recent history.

In March, Jack Teixeira, an airman 1st class who served as a computer technician in the Massachusetts Air National Guard, pleaded guilty in federal court to leaking classified national security documents regarding U.S. assessments of the war in Ukraine and other matters via social media platform Discord. The monthslong breach prompted an Air Force deep-dive into the security failures that enabled the leaks and led the Pentagon to update the military’s policies for handling classified information.

Fifteen people in the chain of command of the 102nd Intelligence Support Squadron, in which Teixeira served, were reprimanded for their inaction that led to the leak. A Pentagon inspector general report found Teixeira’s supervisors were aware that he was discussing intelligence that a person in his role did not need to know.

Teixeira’s sentencing is scheduled for September. He faces more than 16 years in prison and could incur further punishments if the Air Force opts to begin a military trial as well.

The FBI in 2022 also investigated an Air Force intelligence analyst for allegedly leaking classified information in an anti-government group on Discord, according to federal court documents.

Former Staff Sgt. Jason Gray, a cyber analyst with the 381st Intelligence Squadron at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, was accused of sharing a classified image in a private Discord channel that he “likely obtained” via his access to National Security Agency intelligence. An affidavit did not elaborate on what the image showed.

Gray is currently serving five years in federal prison for child pornography discovered during a probe of his electronics, court records show.

And David Franklin Slater, 63, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who worked as an Air Force civilian at U.S. Strategic Command in Nebraska, was arrested in March for allegedly transmitting classified intelligence in early 2022. Federal authorities claim Slater sent information about Russia’s war with Ukraine to a romantic interest through a foreign online dating platform.

The Pentagon’s Office of the Inspector General will coordinate with the U.S. Agency for International Development’s watchdog on two independent investigations, according to a statement from the Office of the Inspector General.

“The agreements between the [Pentagon] and USAID establish roles and responsibilities that help enable U.S. humanitarian assistance to reach Gaza through the maritime corridor,” Pentagon Inspector General Robert Storch said in the statement. “Given this, the [Pentagon Inspector General] and USAID [Inspector General] are working together to address the challenges associated with this mission.”

The Gaza pier mission uses a lesser-known military capability called Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore, or JLOTS, that generally involves sailors and soldiers.

First anchored off the coast on May 16, the pier has delivered 15 million pounds of humanitarian aid to Gaza as of June 25, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said on Tuesday.

But the humanitarian mission has not been without problems.

On May 25, the pier broke apart after heavy winds and high seas pummeled it only a week after it became operational. It took until June 8 for the pier to be operational again.

Three U.S. service members have also sustained non-combat related injuries during the mission, with one in critical condition requiring a medical evacuation to an Israeli hospital.

The soldier was later sent to an Army hospital in Texas.

The pardon impacts veterans who were charged under a previous version of a law in the military’s Uniformed Code of Military Justice that criminalized sodomy, including between two consenting individuals.

Although the U.S. Supreme Court struck down anti-sodomy laws nationwide in a 2003 ruling, the 63-year-old regulation stayed on the books in the UCMJ until Congress amended the law in 2013 to remove consensual sexual acts.

“Some of these patriotic Americans were subject to court-martial, and have carried the burden of this great injustice for decades,” Biden said in a statement. “I am committed to maintaining the finest fighting force in the world. That means making sure that every member of our military is safe and respected — so they can focus on their mission.

“This is about dignity, decency, and ensuring the culture of our Armed Forces reflect the values that make us an exceptional nation.”

Veterans will be able to apply for the pardon if they fall under the eligibility criteria, a senior administration official said. If they are approved for the pardon, they can use the certificate of pardon provided to begin the process of fixing their discharge papers.

Another senior administration official said the Biden administration estimates that thousands of veterans were convicted of consensual conduct under military law, making them eligible for the pardon.

“We are going to take steps to try to make it as easy as possible for individuals to apply for [their paperwork to be correct],” the first senior administration official said. “When the Department of Justice sends the certificate of pardon to those who are eligible, they’ll be including material identifying specifically how they can apply for the change in their character discharge, along with the form for them to do so.”

Some veterans, however, have additional charges on their military record related to sexual identity — conduct unbecoming, for example — that fall outside the scope of the now-defunct portion of the anti-sodomy law. The second senior administration official said the proclamation from Biden does acknowledge that fact, but the pardon does not cover those with other charges tacked on due to their sexual orientation.

Those veterans with additional charges on their record would need to go through a separate process through the Justice Department, they added.

Biden’s pardon for LGBTQ+ veterans comes after the Pentagon in September 2023 announced a “proactive review” of LGBTQ+ veterans who received less-than-honorable discharges based on sexual orientation through the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

According to the Defense Department, more than 32,000 troops were separated from the military under its “homosexual conduct” policy between 1980 and 2011. Of those, roughly 14,000 LGBTQ+ troops were issued less-than-honorable discharges from the armed forces.

Despite the review, the Pentagon has faced its share of legal challenges from LGBTQ+ veterans.

Last Thursday, a district judge denied a motion by the Pentagon to dismiss a class action lawsuit from LGBTQ+ veterans over discharge papers unnecessarily identifying their sexual orientation as grounds for separation — and the responsibility for records’ correction being put on the veterans.

The judge in their decision noted LGBTQ+ veterans are “forced to bear the burden” to alter their discharge papers to protect their privacy and not immediately out their sexual orientation. The judge did not agree with the Pentagon’s argument that the review currently taking place within the Defense Department should be grounds to dismiss the case.

A group of veterans, dubbed Justice for LGBTQ+ Veterans, filed the lawsuit in August 2023, claiming they had been discriminated against by the Pentagon’s former “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy due to their discharge papers unnecessarily identifying their sexual orientation as grounds for separation.

The policy, repealed in 2011, prevented LGBTQ+ service members from serving openly.

While veterans can apply to have their discharge status reviewed, attorneys for the group previously told Military Times that the process can be onerous for LGBTQ+ veterans.

“We are very pleased that the Court recognized the merits of this case by denying the Department of Defense’s motion to dismiss,” attorneys for the veterans said in a statement. “This ruling allows us to move forward in rectifying the discriminatory effects of the Department of Defense’s policies, ensuring that LGBTQ+ veterans receive the honor they rightfully deserve, having served our country with dignity and integrity.”

The Pentagon asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit, citing a six-year statute of limitations for service members to challenge their discharge papers. In its motion, the Pentagon also argued the lawsuit’s timing conflicts with the department’s efforts to correct military records for service members discharged due to their sexual orientation.

Magistrate Judge Joseph Spero of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California denied the Pentagon’s motion. He noted the “burdensome” application process required for LGBTQ+ veterans to correct their discharge papers.

“[LGBTQ+ veterans] suffer new injuries … each time they must present their paperwork disclosing their sexual orientation to obtain benefits or are unable to access benefits that would have been available to them had they not been discharged under [the Defense Department’s] past unconstitutional policies and forced to bear the burden of seeking correction of that paperwork,” Spero wrote in the decision.

In September 2023, Pentagon officials announced a “proactive review” of LGBTQ+ veterans who received less than honorable discharges based on their sexual orientation through its “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

A less than honorable discharge can limit a veteran’s access to veterans benefits or impact job prospects once out of the service.

The review, however, won’t include nearly 20,000 LGBTQ+ veterans expelled from the armed forces before the implementation of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in 1994.

The group declined to drop their lawsuit against the Pentagon after it announced the review.

According to the Defense Department, more than 32,000 troops were separated from the military under its “homosexual conduct” policy before and during the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” era between 1980 and 2011. Of those, roughly 14,000 LGTBQ+ troops were given less than honorable discharges from the armed forces.

Attorneys for Justice for LGBTQ+ Veterans claim the number to be higher, with more than 35,000 troops discharged due to “real or perceived homosexuality, homosexual conduct, sexual perversion, or any other related reason,” according to the complaint.

Further information and results from the Pentagon’s review are expected later this fall, but defense officials have not provided an exact date.

The Pentagon’s Office of the Inspector General report was required in the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act to look at grants, contracts and other forms of collaboration with China and affiliated parties on pathogens of pandemic potential between 2014 and 2023. Investigators did not find any funds were given to organizations for pathogen enhancement, but they ran into difficulty tracking the movement of funds through organizations.

The Pentagon did not track funds “to the level of detail necessary” to allow investigators to completely determine if funds went to Chinese or other foreign laboratories to enhance pathogens, according to the report.

The issue stemmed from the Pentagon not tracking how the institutions that received funds — which frequently contract out work to other institutions — spent the money. The report found that the Pentagon receives a list of intended secondhand recipients of funds during the application process, but organizations can change recipients while in the “performance period” without being required to document those changes.

The Defense Department “did not track funding at the level of detail necessary to enable the [inspector general] to completely and accurately determine if the (Defense Department) provided funding to Chinese research laboratories or other foreign countries for research related to the enhancement of pathogens of pandemic potential,” the report stated. “These limitations hindered our ability to determine the extent of (Defense Department) funds allocated for those research activities.”

The Pentagon’s Office of the Inspector General notified Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, and former Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wisconsin, in April that the watchdog agency would investigate the diversion of funds from the Pentagon into entities working to enhance pathogens.

In a January letter, Ernst and Gallagher requested a “comprehensive review” of possible experiments being conducted in foreign laboratories with Pentagon funds.

“The DoD OIG report is nothing short of jaw-dropping, with millions of U.S. tax dollars being funneled to China for shady experiments and a complicated web of mysteries that creates more questions than answers,” Ernst told Military Times Friday via email.

Investigators did find seven awards, sub-awards or fee-for-service agreements from the Army for research that involved potential enhancement of pathogens, according to the report. Army officials told investigators that the research did not “necessarily enhance the virus for pathogenic potential.”

Army officials offered investigators a couple examples of what the research they funded produced, such as the modification of a virus to infect a rodent versus a human. Another project looked at combining genetic sequences to produce a protein to develop antibodies in order to study immune responses, according to the report.

“We determined that (defense) officials viewed the enhancement of pathogens of pandemic potential as offensive biological work that does not align with the mission and authorities of the (Defense Department),” the report stated. “Army officials also stated that all pathogen research is for defensive purposes in support of understanding the threat, developing diagnostic systems to identify the threat, and developing medical countermeasures to prepare for, or respond to, the threat.”

Investigators also did not find that any of the $46.7 million awarded to EcoHealth Alliance ― which has come under fire from Republican lawmakers over its ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology ― was sent to China.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology has been at the center of right-wing conspiracies and accusations of being the originator of the coronavirus pandemic.

Investigators’ findings corroborate an April 2023 Government Accountability Office report, which found that collected data is often incomplete or inaccurate.

The issue stems from a lower court decision striking down the October 2017 policy from the Trump-appointed Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who expanded reviews of noncitizen service members and extended service time requirements to 180 days in order for active-duty troops to receive naturalization paperwork.

The Trump administration appealed the lower court decision, but President Joe Biden assumed office while the appeal was still active. The Biden administration, with the support of noncitizen service members’ attorneys, asked the court to pause the proceedings to develop a new policy for naturalizing members of the military.

The appeals court agreed to the pause while requiring updates every 60 days on the administration’s development of a new service member naturalization policy.

Over the subsequent three years, the government submitted 17 updates containing identical text.

“It’s been quite disappointing that the Biden administration has not made proactive efforts to facilitate naturalization for service members, especially because it was a ‘100-day promise’ Biden had made,” ACLU staff attorney Scarlet Kim told Military Times. “He even issued an executive order within the first few months of being in office, where he asked DOD to prioritize determining how to facilitate naturalization for noncitizens and implementing changes to that effect. We’ve just seen very little along those lines.”

Pentagon spokesman Joshua Wick said it is the policy of the department to not comment on current court cases. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to request for comment on the status of any new naturalization policy for noncitizen service members.

Still, the Trump-era policy, which went against past measures of naturalization for noncitizen service members, was struck down, Kim told Military Times, meaning noncitizen service members should continue to become citizens by the time they graduate from basic training. But that has not always been the case.

In August 2021, lawyers with the ACLU filed a motion to compel the Pentagon to comply with the district court ruling upon hearing that in multiple instances noncitizen service members were not given proper forms by their chain of command necessary for starting the naturalization process.

A number of noncitizen service members were told they would need to wait until after basic training and shipping out to their first duty station, according to court documents.

“We had been hearing from so many [noncitizen service members] that at basic training they were being confronted with the old policy,” Kim told Military Times. “We still do hear some reports that the vacatur of the old policy has not fully resolved the issue.

“The Department of Defense should do a better job of making it absolutely crystal clear that the old policy is gone and [begin] facilitating naturalization proactively for noncitizen service members.”

Immediately following the Trump-era policy change, between fiscal years 2017 and 2018, applications from service members for United States citizenship plummeted by 65%, from roughly 11,000 to 2,500. The percentage of those applications that were approved also declined, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

USCIS has naturalized more than 148,000 members of the military since 2002.

In September 2022, a Government Accountability Office report found the military faltered in providing timely, informative guidance to noncitizen troops about the naturalization process.

Defense Department policy changes, poorly completed procedures and a lack of available information all contributed to a brief decline in service member naturalization applications, the report stated.

A joint threat bulletin issued Wednesday by Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States — the group of English-speaking countries who comprise the “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing coalition — said companies with ties to the Chinese military will try to lure recruits with large salaries and promises to “fly exotic aircraft” without details about their clientele.

Potential recruits are often approached by personal acquaintances from their days in the military, the bulletin warned. Military pilots, flight engineers and air operations center personnel are the most highly sought-after targets.

“To overcome their shortcomings, China’s People’s Liberation Army has been aggressively recruiting Western military talent to train their aviators, using private firms around the globe that conceal their PLA ties and offer recruits exorbitant salaries,” U.S. National Counterintelligence and Security Center Director Michael Casey said in the bulletin.

“Recent actions by Western governments have impacted these operations, but PLA recruitment efforts continue to evolve in response,” he added.

The United States and NATO allies have also implemented commercial restrictions on a number of companies with ties to the Chinese military, including the Test Flying Academy of South Africa, Beijing China Aviation Technology, Stratos and others.

China’s efforts to learn more about American military tactics and strategy come amid Beijing’s growing aggression toward Taiwan, the democratically self-governed island that maintains military and trade ties with the United States but is claimed by China, and escalating tensions over China’s claim to large swaths of the South China Sea.

This is not the first time the United States has warned service members about the prospect of becoming foreign recruiting targets. In a Sept. 8 memo, then-Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. CQ Brown warned airmen of the legal and national security consequences of accepting a contract with a foreign company.

“By essentially training the trainer, many of those who accept contracts with these foreign companies are eroding our national security, putting the very safety of their fellow service members and the country at risk, and may be violating the law,” Brown wrote.

In October 2022, former Marine Corps pilot Daniel Duggan was arrested in Australia on charges of allegedly training Chinese military pilots, which would violate U.S. arms-control laws.