Fired Navy Sec. Pens Scorched Earth Op-Ed on Trump’s ‘Shocking and Unprecedented’ Intervention in Eddie Gallagher Case
Ousted Navy Secretary Richard Spencer has penned an op-ed in the Washington Post laying out how alarmed he was by President Donald Trump’s intervention in the case of Eddie Gallagher.
To briefly recap: Gallagher was acquitted of the most serious war crimes charges against him, but was convicted on a charge of posing for inappropriate photos with a dead captive. The president intervened in the Navy’s disciplinary proceedings against Gallagher and insisted that they won’t take away his Trident pin.
Spencer ultimately got the boot in the fallout from the president’s decision. In his op-ed, Spencer says that working “without personally consulting” DefSec Mark Esper was “a mistake for which I am solely responsible.”
But he also lays out how stunned he was by Trump’s actions and what they revealed to him about the president’s character.
He writes, “I came to believe that Trump’s interest in the case stemmed partly from the way the defendant’s lawyers and others had worked to keep it front and center in the media.” (Fox News’ Pete Hegseth was particularly outspoken in advocating for Gallagher.)
Spencer continues:
In his case, there were three questions: Would he be permitted to retire at the rank of chief, which is also known as an E-7? (The jury had said he should be busted to an E-6, a demotion.) The second was: Should he be allowed to leave the service with an “honorable” or “general under honorable” discharge? And a third: Should he be able to keep his Trident pin, the medal all SEALs wear and treasure as members of an elite force?
On Nov. 14, partly because the president had already contacted me twice, I sent him a note asking him not to get involved in these questions. The next day, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone called me and said the president would remain involved. Shortly thereafter, I received a second call from Cipollone who said the president would order me to restore Gallagher to the rank of chief.
This was a shocking and unprecedented intervention in a low-level review. It was also a reminder that the president has very little understanding of what it means to be in the military, to fight ethically or to be governed by a uniform set of rules and practices.
He writes on the importance of making sure “a case such as this one from happening again” and concludes that “our allies need to know that we remain a force for good, and to please bear with us as we move through this moment in time.”
