WASHINGTON — This flyboy has been shot down.
A philandering two-star Air Force general was busted by the service’s watchdog last year for having “unprofessional and inappropriate relationships with multiple women” — including an enlisted service member, a married Defense Department civilian employee and three Capitol Hill staffers, according to a lurid report made public this week.
Former Air Force legislative liaison Maj. Gen. Christopher Finerty was found to have had improper sexual relationships — both physical and over the phone — with five women, violating three laws in the Military Code of Justice, according to the Air Force IG report.
The report found a “preponderance of evidence” that Finerty had violated the military’s criminal bans on extramarital sexual conduct, fraternization — personal relationships between officers and enlisted troops — and conduct unbecoming of an officer for a series of trysts between 2020 and 2023.
“Maj. Gen. Finerty’s decision to engage with the aforementioned women, along with keeping those relationships secret, supports he wanted to maintain privacy but also underscores his lack of judgment and an understanding the relationships … were unprofessional,” the report found.
Finerty was first accused of sexting with a female enlisted airman he had previously supervised in the fall of 2020, when they sent each other erotic photos and messages on “seven or eight occasions,” the report found.
Though the two never had explicit physical contact, Finerty admitted to having “fantasy banter” with the much lower-ranking service member and calling her a “sexy bitch” — a flagrant violation of military law.
The following year, Finerty, who then led the Air Force’s legislative affairs office on Capitol Hill, began sexting two staffers “sporadically over the course of ten months” and sexted “on a nearly daily basis” with a third with whom he also had an “intimate relationship.”
“In each case, the sexting included dialogue on the sexual acts he would perform on them and acts he would like them to perform on him,” the report said. “With one, the sexting included an exchange of pornographic images.”
The report described all three women as having roles that required interaction with Finerty in his job leading the service’s interactions with Congress on legislative priorities and the service’s budget.
“These individuals play key roles that make decisions directly affecting DoD and the Air Force,” the report said of the women, “and Maj. Gen. Finerty was the head of the [Department of the Air Force] organization with the primary role of bridging Congressional staffers and leaders with the Air Force.”
The report also included excerpts of explicit exchanges, including one that appeared to take place during work hours after a meeting in Finerty’s office.
In another exchange, Finerty suggested that he and one of the Hill staffers could “share a bed to save more money” for the government on a work trip.
Finerty argued that he “was not aware of anything that says ‘thou shalt not have a personal relationship’” with civilian government employees, but ultimately admitted he knew there “would be a lot of negative publicity and press because those relationships are there.”
“That is a personal relationship that in no way detracts from a professional relationship on the Hill,” Finerty told investigators, according to the report.
But according to investigators, “nearly all” the witnesses interviewed “voiced concern with negative optics to the DAF, including perceptions of ‘favoritism,’ ‘conflict of interest,’ and ‘preferential treatment’ that could be attributed to various DAF-Congressional legislation items.”
“Even considering the relationships with [staffers] where he felt there was no impact to the Air Force, members of [Finerty’s] staff considered his behavior ‘highly inappropriate,’ ‘counterproductive,’ and ‘totally unprofessional.’
The report ultimately found that “Finerty’s conduct fell well below the expectations of an Air Force General Officer, disgraced him personally, and compromised his standing as both an officer and a gentleman,” which is also a punishable offense in military law.
The following year, Finerty had a sexual affair with a civilian DoD employee he knew was married to a fellow military officer, the report said.
“She and Maj. Gen. Finerty … and had ‘about seven to eight, at the most,’ sexual encounters at his residence between November 2022 and February 2023,” the report said, quoting the married woman.
Extramarital affairs are a crime under the UCMJ — if the service member is aware of a partner’s marriage status. While Finerty told investigators he believed the woman was divorced, the IG office found text messages from the general acknowledging his paramour was married and that he could be punished.
“The two exchanged a text thread of 72 separate texts over the course of four hours with topics ranging from past sexual exploits, the potential for future sexual encounters, and MC’s current marital status,” the report said.
“The preponderance of the evidence supports Maj. Gen. Finerty did not have an honest or reasonable belief [the woman] was legally separated or not married.”
Finerty was ultimately demoted to brigadier general following the investigation, and retired from the service in November.