Eddie Gallagher, a much-decorated special operations leader in an elite Navy Seal platoon, was found not guilty by a military court in July 2019 of the first-degree murder of a captive ISIS fighter and the attempted murder of civilians in Iraq.
He was, however, found guilty of posing for photos with the teenage captive’s corpse.
Gallagher claimed he wanted to use the photo to include with his Christmas card.
Not really.
He did it because he thought it was funny.
Really.
A Navy disciplinary board ruled that Gallagher be demoted in rank and forfeit his right to wear the Trident pin, the insignia of the elite Navy Seal unit, or, in other words, he was to be stripped of his association with the Seals.
President Donald Trump reversed the demotion by the disciplinary board. Trump also ordered the Navy to reverse its decision on Gallagher’s right to wear the Trident pin.
The New York Times reported that Trump excoriated the Navy for its handling of the Gallagher case in the following tweet:
“The Navy will NOT be taking away Warfighter and Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher’s Trident Pin. This case was handled very badly from the beginning. Get back to business!”
The Gallagher case resulted in the firing of Secretary of Navy Richard Spencer.
SEE RICHARD SPENCER
It also continued the pattern of Trump interfering in military decisions and issuing pardons to those soldiers charged with – and in some cases convicted — of murdering Iraqi solders, POWs, or civilians.
The New York Times reported that the president, as commander in chief, had the power to intervene in military matters, but this rarely happened because presidents generally deferred to the judgment and experience of military officers.
Most presidents respect the judgment of superior officers because of the officers’ knowledge of military protocol and tradition; their understanding of the consequences when soldiers are not disciplined for bad behavior; and their sense of law and honor that tells us that murder, torture, and other bad behavior damages the reputation of the military and the country.
“I’m hard pressed to think of a time when the president reached this far down into the underbrush of military personnel issues,” said Eugene Fidell, who teaches military law at Yale Law School.
Trump believes he knows more about the military than the military.
To his credit, he once watched the movie Rambo.
Trump has repeatedly said he knows more about everything than anybody – particularly the military.
If Trump isn’t sure of something, however, he isn’t afraid to seek the advice on the military from Fox and Friends host Pete Hegseth and rapper Kid Rock.
https://www.axios.com/2019/01/05/everything-trump-says-he-knows-more-about-than-anybody
SEE KID ROCK
Trump cited Hegseth in a tweet that said he would “be reviewing the case of a U.S. Military hero, Major Matt Golsteyn, a former green beret ‘who is charged with murder’ and could face the death penalty from our own government after he admitted to killing a terrorist bomb maker while overseas.”
https://www.axios.com/2019/01/05/everything-trump-says-he-knows-more-about-than-anybody
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/01/trump-us-military-richard-spencer-edward-gallagher
Gallagher became a cause celebre for President Donald Trump and the far right who believe that war crimes are something committed by soldiers in other countries.
One of Gallagher’s supporters was GOP Congressman Duncan Hunter, who was one of Trump’s earliest supporters when Trump ran for president in 2016.
On December 3, 2019, Hunter pleaded guilty to a single charge of conspiring with his wife to illegally spend campaign funds on personal expenses. He resigned the following month. In October 2020, he was sentenced to 11 months at a federal correctional institute in Texas.
Trump then pardoned Hunter.
SEE DUNCAN HUNTER
The Military Times reported that Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen said that Trump avoided serving in the Vietnam War by making up an injury.
“Mr. Trump claimed (his medical deferment) was because of a bone spur, but when I asked for medical records, he gave me none and said there was no surgery,” Cohen told members of the House Oversight Committee. “He told me not to answer the specific questions by reporters but rather offer simply the fact that he received a medical deferment.
“He finished the conversation with the following comment: ‘You think I’m stupid, I wasn’t going to Vietnam.’”
More than 2.7 American soldiers served in Vietnam and 57 thousand were killed.
Trump criticized U.S. Senate John McCain, a Republican of Arizona, who was tortured in a Vietnam POW camp for several years as a “f–_– loser”; disparaged American soldiers who died in service to their country as “losers” and “suckers”; and said that “he knows more” about fighting wars than the generals in the military.
https://www.militarytimes.com/n
https://archive.thinkprogress.org/generals-want-nothing-to-do-with-trump-0a5ad80cb682/
Gallagher’s acts were so egregious that his own platoon reported that he shot Iraqi civilians and used a hunting knife to bludgeon the Iraqi detainee.
Gallagher was charged with obstruction of justice for threatening to kill those in his SEAL unit who testified against him, the New York Times reported.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/02/us/navy-seal-trial-verdict.html
Navy Cmdr. Jeff Pietrzyk, who prosecuted the case against Gallagher, said that Gallagher sent a text message that said: “I’ve got a cool story for you when I get back. I’ve got my knife skills on.”
Another text stated: “Good story behind this. Got him with my hunting knife.”
Pietrzyk then showed a photo of Gallagher holding up the dead prisoner’s head by the hair.
“The government’s evidence in this case is Chief Gallagher’s words, Chief Gallagher’s pictures, Chief Gallagher’s SEALs,” Pietrzyk said.
Gallagher’s lawyers said his texts were merely examples of his “dark combat humor.”
That Eddie Gallagher, what a nut!
The New York Times reported that during the two-week trial, two SEALs testified that they had witnessed Gallagher stab the detainee without provocation. When others in the platoon confronted Gallagher who admitted to the stabbing, he reportedly replied, “I thought everyone would be cool with it; next time, I’ll do it where you can’t see.”
The military court exonerated Gallagher after one of the witnesses changed his story during his testimony and claimed to have stabbed the detainee himself.
Bernard Kerik, a disgraced former New York police commissioner, organized Gallagher’s legal defense.
Kerik, who Trump pardoned on his felony conviction on tax fraud, worked with disgraced former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Trump on challenging the results of the 2020 Presidential Election.
SEE BERNARD KERIK
