The Navy SEAL at the center of a high-profile war crimes case has been ordered to appear before Navy leaders Wednesday morning, and is expected to be notified that the Navy intends to oust him from the elite commando force, two Navy officials said on Tuesday.
The move could put the SEAL commander, Rear Adm. Collin Green, in direct conflict with President Trump, who last week cleared the sailor, Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, of any judicial punishment in the war crimes case. Military leaders opposed that action as well as Mr. Trump’s pardons of two soldiers involved in other murder cases.
NYT
When Trump is impeached and removed from office, can his pardons be revoked?
Navy officials had planned to begin the process of taking away Chief Gallagher’s Trident pin, the symbol of his membership in the SEALs, earlier this month. But as he waited outside his commander’s office, Navy leaders sought clearance from the White House that never came, and no action was taken.
Admiral Green now has the authorization he needs from the Navy to act against Chief Gallagher, and the formal letter notifying the chief of the action has been drafted by the admiral, the two officials said.
[...]
The Navy also plans to take the Tridents of three SEAL officers who oversaw Chief Gallagher — Lt. Cmdr. Robert Breisch, Lt. Jacob Portier and Lt. Thomas MacNeil — and their letters have been drafted as well, one of the officials said.
[...]
One Navy official who spoke about the specifics of the action said the admiral was making the move knowing that it could end his career, but that he had the backing of Adm. Michael M. Gilday, the chief of naval operations, and Richard V. Spencer, the secretary of the Navy.
[...]
[Gallagher's lawyer] said he expected Mr. Trump to order the Navy to restore Chief Gallagher’s Trident if it is removed, and to dismiss Admiral Green from command.
[...]
The commander in chief’s intent is crystal clear, that he wants Eddie left alone.”
Nothing mob like in
that.
Navy officials contend that, independent of the criminal charges, Chief Gallagher’s behavior during and since the deployment has fallen below the standard of the SEALs. A Navy investigation uncovered evidence that he had been buying and using narcotics.
Since his acquittal, Chief Gallagher has trolled the Navy on social media, taunting the SEALs who testified against him; mocking one who wept as he told investigators about witnessing the stabbing of the captive; insulting the Naval Criminal Investigative Service; and calling top SEAL commanders, including Admiral Green, “a bunch of morons.”
[...]
The president has the authority to stop or reverse any decision concerning the SEALs’ Tridents, according to Eugene R. Fidell, who teaches military justice at Yale Law School. But for generations, he said, presidents have generally refrained from inserting themselves into the military’s personnel decisions.
This one will.
Regarding Chief Gallagher’s Trident, he said: “A reasonable observer could say this is a completely inappropriate intrusion into the military. If Trump saves his Trident — and I’d bet on it — I would say he will have driven the wedge ever deeper into an already divided military. And that can’t be helpful.”
[...]
Removing a Trident does not entail a reduction in rank, but it effectively ends a SEAL’s career. Since Chief Gallagher and Lieutenant Portier both planned to leave the Navy soon in any case, the step would have little practical effect on them. But in a warrior culture that prizes honor and prestige, the rebuke would still cast the men out of a tight-knit brotherhood.
[...]
“To have a commander remove that pin after a guy has gone through so much to earn it, it is pretty much the worst thing you could do,” said Eric Deming, a retired senior chief who served 19 years in the SEALs. “You are having your whole identity taken away.”
Better than your life, which is what Gallagher took from others.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
UPDATE 11/21:
UPDATE 12/1:
Chief Gallagher, 40, a seasoned operator with a deeply weathered face from eight combat deployments, sometimes went by the nickname Blade. He sought out the toughest assignments, where gunfire and blood were almost guaranteed. Months before deploying, he sent a text to the SEAL master chief making assignments, saying he was “down to go” to any spot, no matter how awful, so long as “there is for sure action and work to be done.”
“We don’t care about living conditions,” he added. “We just want to kill as many people as possible.”
Before deployment, he commissioned a friend and former SEAL to make him a custom hunting knife and a hatchet, vowing in a text, “I’ll try and dig that knife or hatchet on someone’s skull!”
[...]
A far cry from the fierce, masked Islamic State fighters who once seized vast swaths of Iraq and Syria, the captive [alledgedly killed by Gallagher] was a scraggly teenager in a tank top with limbs so thin that his watch slid easily off his wrist.
Gallagher and other Navy SEALs gave the young captive medical aid that day in Iraq in 2017, sedating him and cutting an airway in his throat to help him breathe. Then, without warning, according to colleagues, Chief Gallagher pulled a small hunting knife from a sheath and stabbed the sedated captive in the neck.
[...]
A week later, Chief Gallagher sent a friend in California a text with a photo of himself with a knife in one hand, holding the captive up by the hair with the other. “Good story behind this, got him with my hunting knife,” he wrote.
[...]
At various points, he appeared to be either amped up or zoned out; several SEALs told investigators they saw him taking pills, including the narcotic Tramadol. He spent much of his time scanning the streets of Mosul from hidden sniper nests, firing three or four times as often as the platoon’s snipers, sometimes targeting civilians.
[...]
Chief Gallagher had been accused of misconduct before, including shooting through an Afghan girl to hit the man carrying her in 2010 and trying to run over a Navy police officer in 2014. But in both cases no wrongdoing was found.
SEALs said they reported concerns to Lieutenant Portier with no result. The lieutenant outranked Chief Gallagher but was younger and less experienced. SEALs said in interviews that the chief often yelled at his commanding officer or disregarded him altogether. After the deployment, Lieutenant Portier was charged with not reporting the chief for war crimes but charges were dropped. So SEALs said they started firing warning shots to keep pedestrians out of range. One SEAL told investigators he tried to damage the chief’s rifle to make it less accurate.
By the end of the deployment, SEALs said, Chief Gallagher was largely isolated from the rest of the platoon, with some privately calling him “el diablo,” or the devil.
NYT
And now he has a presidential pardon from Old Scratch himself.
