In politics, trust is important and often what a person has done says a lot about who they truly are. In this case, Amerine is a war hero. It's a characterization he loathes and will never attribute to himself, but I will.
So of course I was on board to help save American lives when he came to me to talk about the problems with our country's policy on hostages. I committed to giving my best effort to change the U.S. government's approach to recovering Americans -- civilian and military -- held captive in warzones.
Amerine was first tasked by Gen. John Campbell -- who is now leading the ground war in Afghanistan -- to develop plans to recover Bowe Bergdahl. Nobody in their right mind thought the State Department-induced and -led five-for-one prisoner exchange was a good idea.
Amerine quickly determined that not only could he recover Bergdahl, but he could also secure the release of other American captives without firing a shot. He also spotted inherent dysfunction and conflict within government. Our response was quick. I wrote to former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel twice. He called me to say he agreed that these problems needed to be solved. He told me what he planned to do and who he would task to do it.
In that same span of time, Jason was getting close to making something happen, but it was the Federal Bureau of Investigation that first took offense to his efforts. Not the Army. The FBI argued that hostage recovery -- in a warzone or not -- was entirely under their purview even if the agents in charge of certain cases never stepped foot in Afghanistan. And forget that Jason had personal relationships at the highest levels of the Afghan government as well as other close and well-placed friends in the region. None of it mattered to the FBI.
So what did the FBI do? They "informally" suggested to the Army that it look at Amerine for sharing classified information. They needed Amerine back in his lane, and the quickest and easiest way to do that was to sideline him through an investigation. I don't necessarily have a problem with that, honestly, because this type of stuff happens every day in government. People are always trying to protect their turf at the expense of others.