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Trump Reverses Navy Decision to Oust Edward Gallagher From SEALs Trump Reverses Navy Decision to Oust Edward Gallagher From SEALs
(about 4 hours later)
President Trump on Thursday reversed a decision by the Navy seeking to oust a Navy SEAL, Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, from the elite commando force. Anyone in the Navy can spot a SEAL by the gold insignia pinned to his chest: an eagle on an anchor, clutching a flintlock pistol and a trident. It is the badge of an elite band of warriors, one of the most revered in the military.
Chief Gallagher has been at the center of a high-profile war crimes case and was granted clemency by the president last Friday. He was notified on Wednesday that the Navy planned to start the process of revoking his status as a SEAL and taking away the Trident pin that symbolizes that status. The pin, known as the Trident, represents the grit of sailors who made it through some of the toughest training in the Navy, and are given some of the riskiest missions. It stands for fidelity and sacrifice. Even in death, the pin plays a role: SEALs pound their pins into the wood of fallen comrades’ caskets.
Less than 24 hours later, Mr. Trump announced on Twitter that the process would not go ahead: “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!” This week, the Trident became a symbol of defiance.
A short time later, an Instagram account belonging to Chief Gallagher and his wife reposted the message with the comment, “Boom,” and a series of explosion, flag and applause emojis. Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher wore his pin when he reported to work on Thursday at Naval Base Coronado near San Diego. But that pin, and Chief Gallagher’s 14-year SEAL career, had become the focus of an epic clash between President Trump and the Navy.
The whipsaw reversal, after the Navy believed it had official approval to act, is the latest twist in the unusually public melee over Chief Gallagher, which at times has pitted the commander in chief directly against senior Navy leaders. Mr. Trump said in a Twitter post on Thursday that he would be personally intervening in a disciplinary proceeding, to ensure that the chief keeps his Trident pin — an exceedingly rare step by a president that undercut the authority of the SEALs leadership.
On Tuesday, multiple Navy and Defense Department officials said the Navy had cleared its plan to start the Trident revocation process with the White House, though they acknowledged the risk of seeking to punish a SEAL who counts Mr. Trump among his vocal supporters. They said they knew the president could easily reverse the decision. The elite force has been rocked by a series of scandals in recent years, and the most prominent has been a war crimes prosecution centered on Chief Gallagher’s 2017 deployment in Iraq. SEALs in his platoon told commanders and Navy investigators that they saw him shoot civilians and murder a wounded captive with a hunting knife, among other misconduct.
The Navy’s decision to start the process to oust Chief Gallagher and three SEAL officers who supervised him was not made in haste, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations. The commander of Naval Special Warfare, Rear Adm. Collin Green, discussed the matter with Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer and the chief of naval operations, Adm. Michael Gilday, and the Navy briefed Defense Secretary Mark Esper about it. When the Navy prosecuted Chief Gallagher, however, conservative lawmakers and media outlets took up his cause, and Mr. Trump intervened several times in his favor. When the chief’s court-martial ended in acquittal on most charges, Mr. Trump congratulated him and lambasted the prosecutors. After the Navy demoted Chief Gallagher for the one relatively minor charge on which he was convicted, Mr. Trump reversed the demotion.
In the hours before Admiral Green issued formal notification letters to the four SEALs, two of the officials said, the Navy reached out to the White House for clearance multiple times. This week, the commander of Naval Special Warfare, Rear Adm. Collin Green, played his final card in the case by starting the formal process of taking away Chief Gallagher’s Trident pin and expelling him from the SEALs. But Mr. Trump countermanded the move. “The Navy will NOT be taking away Warfighter and Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher’s Trident Pin,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter on Thursday. “This case was handled very badly from the beginning. Get back to business!”
An Instagram account belonging to Chief Gallagher and his wife soon reposted the message with the comment “Boom” and a series of explosion, flag and applause emojis.
“The Navy follows the lawful orders of the president,” Rear Adm. Charlie Brown, the Navy’s chief of information, said in statement on Thursday evening. Using an abbreviation for the chief’s rank and status, the admiral wrote, “We will do so in case of an order to stop the administrative review of S.O.C. Gallagher’s professional qualification. We are aware of the president’s tweet and we are awaiting further guidance.”
The whipsaw reversal, after the Navy believed it had official approval to act, is the latest twist in the unusually public melee over Chief Gallagher, which has exposed a struggle in the SEALs to rein in rogue operators, while at the same time pitting the commander in chief directly against his senior Navy leaders
The Navy’s decision to start the process to oust Chief Gallagher, along with three SEAL officers who supervised him in Iraq, was not made in haste, according to Navy and Defense Department officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations. Admiral Green had discussed the matter with Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer and the chief of naval operations, Adm. Michael Gilday, and the Navy briefed Defense Secretary Mark Esper about it.
In the hours before Admiral Green issued formal notification letters to the four SEALs, two of the officials said, the Navy had reached out to the White House for clearance multiple times and had not received any pushback. They did not specify which White House officials were contacted.
But mixed signals and reversed decisions are not uncommon in the White House, where rival aides with opposing views, and sometimes outside influences, jockey for the president’s attention.But mixed signals and reversed decisions are not uncommon in the White House, where rival aides with opposing views, and sometimes outside influences, jockey for the president’s attention.
The president announced the reversal on Twitter shortly after Chief Gallagher’s lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, appeared on Fox News, framing the Navy action as one of defiance toward the president’s decision last week to restore Chief Gallagher’s rank. The president announced the reversal shortly after Chief Gallagher’s lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, appeared on Fox News, framing the Navy action as one of defiance toward the president’s decision last week to restore Chief Gallagher’s rank.
“Monday morning, the admiral comes in and says, ‘I disagree with the president, I’m going to take his Trident,’” Mr. Parlatore said. “What he’s doing here is really just an effort to publicly humiliate Chief Gallagher and stick it right in the president’s eye.”“Monday morning, the admiral comes in and says, ‘I disagree with the president, I’m going to take his Trident,’” Mr. Parlatore said. “What he’s doing here is really just an effort to publicly humiliate Chief Gallagher and stick it right in the president’s eye.”
In a phone interview, Mr. Parlatore said Chief Gallagher had been told Thursday morning that the process to revoke his Trident was still moving forward. Chief Gallagher, 40, earned his Trident in 2005 after graduating from the Navy’s punishing Basic Underwater Demolition course. He deployed with the SEALs five times, eventually becoming a platoon chief, and was repeatedly decorated for valor. He developed a reputation as an accomplished, battle-wise veteran.
The war crimes case surrounding Chief Gallagher was rooted in a 2017 deployment in Iraq, where the chief was a SEAL platoon leader. Some members of his platoon reported him to commanders, accusing him of shooting unarmed civilians, killing a wounded teenage captive with a hunting knife and other wrongdoing. He was arrested and indicted in late 2018, but his court-martial ended in July with acquittal on all but one relatively minor charge, posing for a trophy photo with the captive’s corpse. But the SEALs serving under him on the 2017 deployment told Navy investigators afterward that they came to see him differently, as a warrior who seemed more interested in killing than in leading, and who did not mind breaking the rules. And they said the chief’s immediate superiors seemed more inclined to look the other way than to rein him in.
The chief was championed by Fox News and other conservative media outlets, which implored Mr. Trump to pardon him. Mr. Trump intervened in the case several times in the chief’s favor, and announced congratulations on Twitter after the verdict, saying, “Glad I could help.” The Navy moved this week to start the process of taking Tridents from three of those officers: Lt. Cmdr. Robert Breisch and Lt. Jacob Portier, who were implicated in not promptly reporting the allegations against Chief Gallagher, and Lt. Thomas MacNeil, who posed in a trophy photo with the chief and the corpse of a captive. Posing for that photo was the basis of the one charge on which the chief was convicted at trial.
The military jury reduced Chief Gallagher by one rank, to petty officer first class, for the charge on which he was convicted. But last Friday, Mr. Trump reversed the demotion and restored his rank to chief. Mr. Trump also pardoned two soldiers charged with or convicted of murder. Mr. Trump made no mention of the three officers in his Twitter message on Thursday. The Navy later said it had paused all four Trident reviews while awaiting orders.
Admiral Green told his staff on Monday to begin the process that could end with revoking the Tridents of Chief Gallagher and the three SEAL officers who supervised him during the deployment in Iraq: Lt. Cmdr. Robert Breisch and Lt. Jacob Portier, who were implicated in not promptly reporting the killings, as required by regulations; and Lt. Thomas MacNeil, who posed in the trophy photo with Chief Gallagher. Sailors stripped of their Tridents become pariahs, several SEALs said. Their careers are effectively over, and they are cast out of the SEAL community, officially marked as undeserving of the title that they worked hard to earn.
Each man was ordered to appear before superiors on Wednesday, where he received a letter from the admiral formally notifying him that a review board would be convened in early December to consider whether to expel him from the SEALs. Experts say that in the past, such boards have almost always decided to recommend expulsion. Mr. Trump has had what people close to him described as a natural affinity for Chief Gallagher, seeing him as a military figure who was caught up in what Mr. Trump sees as the unpleasantness of war, but who had not intended to commit crimes.
Mr. Trump made no mention of the three officers in his Twitter message Thursday. The Navy did not immediately respond to questions about their status.
Mr. Trump has had what people close to him described as a natural affinity for Chief Gallagher, seeing him as a military figure who was caught up in what Mr. Trump sees as the unpleasantness of war, but who had not intended to commit crimes. They said Mr. Trump’s view of the Gallagher case was also colored by his anger at the Mueller investigation and others directed at him and his aides that he sees as unfair.
Though no previous president had done so, Mr. Trump has repeatedly announced military decisions via Twitter, sometimes after only fleeting consultation with military leaders. Those decisions have at times been sweeping in scope, like Mr. Trump’s announcement that all transgender Americans would be barred from military service. At other times, they have focused on a single service member, like the Twitter message in March announcing that Chief Gallagher would be released from the brig to await his trial in less restrictive confinement.
As commander in chief, the president has authority to intervene in military matters of all kinds, whether momentous or minute, experts say, but most presidents have given deference to the judgment of top officers.As commander in chief, the president has authority to intervene in military matters of all kinds, whether momentous or minute, experts say, but most presidents have given deference to the judgment of top officers.
“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. “It is hard enough for the service secretaries and senior officers to do their job on a good day, but to add the wild card of unpredictable presidential intervention makes a hash of their efforts.” “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.
Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that by reversing the admiral’s action, Mr. Trump had done “a real disservice to our troops.”Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that by reversing the admiral’s action, Mr. Trump had done “a real disservice to our troops.”
“President Trump owes the American people a fuller explanation,” Senator Reed said. “Because if he just casually dismisses battlefield criminal misconduct via Tweet, it could lead to more misconduct and undermine military integrity.” Scott Taylor, a Republican and retired Navy SEAL running for Senate in Virginia, urged the Navy to drop the Gallagher matter. Though the SEALs have “had recent challenges in discipline, and there is needed corrective action,” he said, “this particular case was deeply flawed from the beginning.” Presidents have butted heads with senior commanders before over personnel matters. John F. Kennedy intervened to stop the punishment of an Army Reserve soldier who was court-martialed for bad-mouthing him. Abraham Lincoln infuriated some of his generals by regularly combing through court-martial orders for Union troops who were charged with desertion and other crimes and scrawling impromptu one-line orders for leniency, like “Let him fight instead of being shot.”
Scott Taylor, a Republican and retired Navy SEAL running for Senate in Virginia, urged the Navy to drop the Gallagher case now. Though the SEALs have “had recent challenges in discipline, and there is needed corrective action,” he said, “this particular case was deeply flawed from the beginning.” He added, “The commander in chief has weighed in, and the Navy needs to carry out his wishes.”Presidents have butted heads with senior commanders before over personnel matters. John F. Kennedy intervened to stop the punishment of an Army Reserve soldier who was court-martialed for bad mouthing him. Abraham Lincoln infuriated some of his generals by regularly combing through court-martial orders for Union troops who were charged with desertion and other crimes and scrawling impromptu one-line orders for leniency, like “Release this boy” and “Let him fight instead of being shot.” Experts say the constitutional arrangement of civilian control over the military can become strained when a president disregards the counsel of generals and admirals, or never seeks it in the first place.
Still, experts say, the constitutional arrangement of civilian control over the military can become strained when a president disregards the counsel of generals and admirals, or never seeks it in the first place.
“The president clearly has the authority, but historically the president and military leaders have communicated back and forth, coming to a mutual understanding,” said Thomas Bruneau, who has taught classes on national security affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School. “To take precipitous action and override a senior officer is almost unheard-of.”“The president clearly has the authority, but historically the president and military leaders have communicated back and forth, coming to a mutual understanding,” said Thomas Bruneau, who has taught classes on national security affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School. “To take precipitous action and override a senior officer is almost unheard-of.”
Mr. Bruneau said there was a danger of eroding the military’s trust in its civilian leaders and undermining the military justice system. “This tells the rank and file that anyone in trouble could play this up in the media and try to appeal to the president, which could corrode the morale of the whole system,” he said.
Still unknown is the impact that being publicly countermanded by Mr. Trump will have on Admiral Green, the commander who set the process of revoking Chief Gallagher’s Trident in motion.Still unknown is the impact that being publicly countermanded by Mr. Trump will have on Admiral Green, the commander who set the process of revoking Chief Gallagher’s Trident in motion.
Defense Department and Navy officials said that when Admiral Green discussed his plans with top Navy leaders, he acknowledged that the action could be opposed by Mr. Trump and might end the admiral’s career.Defense Department and Navy officials said that when Admiral Green discussed his plans with top Navy leaders, he acknowledged that the action could be opposed by Mr. Trump and might end the admiral’s career.
Navy Special Warfare did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Admiral Green.Navy Special Warfare did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Admiral Green.
In an interview, Chief Gallagher’s lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, said the admiral had to choose one of three courses of action: “Comply with the order and continue on; comply with the order and resign; or disregard the order and go to jail.”In an interview, Chief Gallagher’s lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, said the admiral had to choose one of three courses of action: “Comply with the order and continue on; comply with the order and resign; or disregard the order and go to jail.”
Peter Feaver, a professor of political science at Duke University, said that American military officers almost never resign in protest over disagreements with civilian leaders. Peter Feaver, a professor of political science at Duke University, said American military officers almost never resign in protest over disagreements with civilian leaders.
“It is seen as undermining civilian control by creating a political conflict and weakening public confidence,” he said. “Officers are supposed to serve, even if they might not agree.”“It is seen as undermining civilian control by creating a political conflict and weakening public confidence,” he said. “Officers are supposed to serve, even if they might not agree.”
In rare cases, senior officers have been told to retire or maneuvered into retiring after falling out with the White House. A well-known example was Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who locked horns with President Truman during the Korean War and then retired after Mr. Truman fired him from overall command. But experts were unable to cite an example of an admiral or general who was ousted by a president over a low-level personnel issue.
A SEAL stationed at Naval Base Coronado, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said that both Mr. Trump and Admiral Green had strong support at the base, and that the SEALs there were dismayed to see the two leaders at odds.
He said that most of the SEALs he had spoken with about the matter were discouraged that war fighters who aspired to be silent professionals had been drawn into a political dispute. He noted that part of the SEAL ethos is the statement, “I do not advertise the nature of my work, nor seek recognition for my actions.”
Maggie Haberman, John Ismay and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs contributed reporting.Maggie Haberman, John Ismay and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs contributed reporting.