The secretary of the Navy and the admiral who leads the SEALs have threatened to resign or be fired if plans to expel a SEALS commando in a war crimes case are halted by President Donald Trump, The New York Times reported Saturday.
The Navy is going ahead with disciplinary plans against Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, for whom Trump reversed a demotion and on Thursday suggested he’d intervene.
The threats by Navy Secretary Richard Spencer and Rear Adm. Collin Green, who leads the SEALS, are a rare instance of pushback against Trump from members of the Defense Department, the Times noted.
Spencer, however, has since called the report of his threat to resign inaccurate, CNN reported Saturday.
Administration officials hoped Trump would allow the proceedings to continue — after Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, scrambled to come up with a face-saving compromise, the Times reported.
Gallagher was accused of shooting civilians, murdering a captive Islamic State fighter with a hunting knife in Iraq, and threatening to kill SEALs who reported him, among other misconduct. His court-martial ended in acquittal on those charges.
But the Navy demoted the chief, who was convicted of one charge: bringing discredit to the armed forces by posing for photos with the teenage captive’s dead body.
Chief Gallagher’s lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, said the Navy’s move was clear retribution, coming just days after the president’s decision to restore Gallagher's rank.
“With the timing, it’s difficult to see how this was anything but a direct, public rebuke to the president,” Parlatore told the Times. “So I can’t see how the secretary of defense or anyone else is going to convince the president that is O.K.”
In an interview Friday, Spencer made it clear he wanted to move forward with the matter, which could strip Gallagher of his Trident pin. “I believe the process matters for good order and discipline,” he told Reuters.
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