Trump grants clemency to 2 Army officers accused of war crimes, restores rank to Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher

I can’t imagine another President doing this. Trump supports the military and wants them to KILL THE ENEMY. They shouldn’t be punished for doing their job.

God Bless our military and Commander in Chief.

The only military guy Barry stood up for was a deserter.

Trump just trumped the Uniform Court of Military Justice, pardoning war crime convictions despite strong opposition from the Pentagon.

“The President, as Commander-in-Chief, is ultimately responsible for ensuring that the law is enforced and when appropriate, that mercy is granted.”

Yep. He took an oath to ensure that the nation’s laws are enforced.

@Greg: They didn’t violate any US laws; they violated Obama’s ridiculous rules of engagement designed to protect terrorists and get soldiers killed. Soldiers that kill terrorists shouldn’t be in fear of prosecution.

Just pretend they deserted their units, spilled US secrets or lied about the President of the United States; that way you can be happy about their pardons.

@Greg:

I don’t believe these guys would turn on one of their own without having a VERY damn good reason for doing so.

Yeah, like they might get the Gen. Flynn treatment if they don’t cooperate.

@Deplorable Me: “The train has left the station and now they can’t get off the rails. Now, they’re stuck,” said Parlatore, who suspects some accusers lied to investigators.
Must be tough knowing that team 6 was set up.

In his statements to NCIS, the LPO said he later returned to the area, rounded a parked Humvee and spotted Gallagher kneeling on the right side of the wounded teen.

He insisted that he then saw the chief “stab the ISIS fighter multiple times in the right side of the neck” in a manner that “was in no way a medical procedure,” according to an NCIS report.

He described Gallagher’s knife as the same weapon the chief always carried in a leather sheath. He told NCIS it had a blade a few inches long, although photographs of the weapon make it look stubbier.

The LPO told the agent that an SO1 who remained to assist Gallagher with the medical care was “freaking out a little bit over what Eddie just did” but there was nothing anyone could do “because the subject was dead.”

That’s something the other medically-trained SO1 also told investigators; He returned to the area and was surprised to find the prisoner dead.

Filling in that gap of time, an SO1 who had been with the detainee later told NCIS that the wounded fighter also received a chest tube. He added that he was only about a foot away from the prisoner when Gallagher pulled out his knife and stabbed the boy two or three times in the neck.

Two eye-witnesses, one only about a foot away, isn’t exactly hearsay evidence, is it?

So, Trump commands that he be given a promotion.

November 23, 2019 – Navy secretary strongly considering resigning over Trump’s meddling in SEAL case

WASHINGTON — Military leaders hoping to keep the Secretary of the Navy from quitting lobbied President Donald Trump aboard Air Force One to stop intervening in the case of a Navy SEAL accused of murder, say five current and one former military and defense officials.

On Thursday Trump waded once again into the case of Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, a Navy SEAL accused of murdering a wounded ISIS militant in Iraq in 2017. Gallagher was acquitted by a military court but found guilty of posing with the dead prisoner’s body.

Trump, who had previously restored Gallagher’s rank, denounced a new Navy administrative probe into whether Gallagher should remain in the elite SEAL corps. “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 president tweeted.

The SEAL Trident pin or Special Warfare Insignia is a symbol of membership in the SEALs.

Navy Secretary Richard Spencer responded Thursday by telling the White House that a tweet is not an official order and if the president is ordering the Navy to end the Trident Review Board of Gallagher, he needs to do so in writing, according to five current and two former military officials.

The officials say he also explained to the White House that the Navy needs direction on whether the president also wants to suspend the review board for three other SEALS also scheduled to undergo the assessment.

Four officials familiar with Spencer’s thinking say he is strongly considering resigning and will do so if Trump signs a written order to end the Navy probe. He conveyed those feelings to Pentagon leaders on Thursday.

“He is deeply, deeply upset by this and believes it undercuts his authority,” one former Navy official said, adding that it also undercuts Rear Adm. Collin Green, commander of the Navy’s Special Warfare Command, who ordered the review and is trying to maintain good order and discipline in the SEAL community.

…

@retire05, #16:

Possibly Donald Trump doesn’t understand what happens to morale, order, discipline, and respect for the chain of command when a superior publicly undercuts the authority of subordinate commissioned or non-commissioned officers. This also undercuts the military justice system, and disrespects the moral courage it took to testify against or pass judgement on a fellow service member. The President pretty much overrode the entire chain of command and military justice system by way of a Twitter post. I’m not surprised the Secretary of the Navy has taken very strong exception. Top level officers are likely behind him on this.

Eddie Gallagher was found innocent of all crimes except for having his photo taken with a dead terrorist.

Gallagher should consider himself lucky. His lawyer was able to convince the court martial panel that the injured prisoner he stabbed in the throat might have been dead before Gallagher stabbed him. There was no body to be examined by the time charges were filed, so this could be neither proved or disproved by a medical examiner. For improperly treating a dead body, he got off with a reduction in rank by one grade.

@retire05, #18:

More of your “possibly” bullshit.

I suppose I don’t really need to be tactful. Trump doesn’t have an effing clue what publicly and arbitrarily undercutting the authority of subordinates does to morale, order, discipline, and respect for military justice. He has no more respect or regard for military law than he does for the law in general. He thinks the chain of command is nothing but an authority hierarchy, that his position at the top of it is all that matters, and that he can therefore command those below him to unquestioningly do whatever he wishes.

Now, under Trump, our military is allowed to do what they are trained to do; blow shit up and kill the bad guys.

You probably have no clue how ridiculous that sounds. But it does sound like Trump.

Aside from the defense finding the prosecution had evidence by reading the papers and then being spied on for their leaks. I can see why the President felt empathy for the treatment of the Seal.
The Secretary is done will be replaced.
All the medals that they awarded themselves over this case are gone, and Gallager get his earned medal back and gets to retire at full rank and honors.
Oh the terrorist only being 15, they hand their kids guns at 10 or younger so he was a seasoned terrorist.

@Greg: He unfortunately was poorly advised.by Obama’s “Politically Correct” Flag Officers in open opposition to The President like McRaven, and should be relieved of command, for his outward display of disdain and insubordination toward the Commander-in-Chief.
Did you catch that SOCS Gallagher was the “SEAL of the Year” in SEAL Team 7 in the year in which the accusations against him were made? Of course, the legacy media – or Navy Times, for that matter! – never convey anything positive about Gallagher because it doesn’t fit their narrative.
The same people making these accusations were the same people that he publicly called out. It is my understanding that he sent them out of the fight for a week or maybe even two so they get their stomach back. For a SEAL to be called a coward or inferred to be a coward, is worse than death, and the Shame of it would be devastating.
Even after clemency was granted they couldnt leave Gallager alone they tried to Strip him of rank and earned merits. He is a highly decorated combat veteran with two Bronze Stars with V, and one Navy and Marine Corp Achievement medal with a V. We know that Eddie was SEAL Sailor of the year in 2017 which was the same year that he is being accused of war crimes. He has done 8 combat deployments to both Iraq and Afghanistan.
President Trump supposedly “politicizing” the Navy , exactly backwards; Obama is the culprit, as he and his hand-picked Secretary of the Navy and a number of promoted flag officers were directly responsible for implementing horrible combat Rules of Engagement and personnel policies that destroyed Navy readiness and morale.

And President Trump has been turning all of that around while being undermined along the way by retired Obama admirals and now RADM Green. POTUS’s actions are a great shot in the arm for military morale!
Greg as always you are wrong brother, just flat out wrong mostly because you are denied facts by your resistance media.

@Greg:

Why don’t you remind us all, Comrade Greggie, how many high ranking military officers Obama fired during his purge of the military? Why don’t you name them? I’m sure some of the names will be familiar to most of us.

You’re such an idiot, Comrade Greggie Goebbels.

What you folks don’t understand is a lot.

I’m paid a nickel by the Deep State for every time you insult me, which I promptly donate to the Biden 2020 presidential campaign. Your assistance is much appreciated.

@Greg:

Well, one thing we know; you’re paid by someone on the left. I hope that $2.00 you have sent them helps with Sleepy Joe’s upcoming legal bills.

Here’s another nickel.

You’re a f***king idiot, Comrade Greggie Goebbels.

@Greg:

This is what happens in the Trump administration when you try to stand up for principles.

No, that’s what happens when a military leader fails to obey orders of the Commander in Chief. He got caught up trying to defend his bad decision.

Of course, it was OK to Obama to fire dozens of generals, destroy Gen. McChrystal, Gen. Petraeus and Gen. Flynn. It is no secret the left hates the military and military people. Trump honors and protects them.

Secretary Spencer was standing up for the integrity of the legal process defined by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and for the underlying principle upon which the U.S. military’s entire command and control structure is based.

Throwing someone in jail for 6 years and stripping them of all rank for having a picture made with a corpse is “justice”?

@Greg:

And your point is?????????????????????????

You’re an idiot, Comrade Greggie.

There’s another nickel.

@Greg: If he didn’t agree with Trump’s clemency then he should have resigned then and there, not hang around and try to undercut his Commander in Chief’s orders.

Did any military revolt when Obama granted the idiotic pardon of Manning? No, they followed their orders and did their job. Some people take the flawed view that Trump’s orders can simply be ignored; then they find out different, the hard way.

@Greg: He was found not guilty of all charges but one for having a picture made with a dead terrorist. For that, he got 10 years in prison and stripped of rank. Yeah, that seems fair.

Trump did a great thing in pardoning this warrior. Meanwhile, the left’s hatred of all things military lives on.

Respect for the military entails respect for the Uniform Code of Military Justice. It was a military court that heard Gallagher’s case, a military court that considered all testimony and evidence, a military court that deliberated and reached a verdict, and a military court that imposed a sentence. It was Gallagher’s fellow Navy Seals who testified against him. Presumably they have respect for the military, for the elite units in which they serve, and for the high standard of conduct expected of those who do. The court gave Gallagher the benefit of the doubt on all charges but one, which was probably far more benefit of the doubt than was deserved. What he had done in the case of the charge that remained was indisputable. No doubt existed. So, on that one they drew a line. Gallagher is no Boy Scout. The Boy Scouts probably wouldn’t have him. They have standards to maintain.

Trump cultists can yammer all they want about “the left’s hatred of all things military.” They’re just mouthing empty words, as they do in the case of religion, constitutional law, and patriotism. They’re just pleased that their Draft-Dodger-in-Chief lifted a finger on behalf of one of their manufactured cause célèbres. Republican politicians on the make and their media propagandists began lobbying on behalf of Gallagher early on, turning an issue of honor, conduct, and military justice into one more politically exploitable issue. Meanwhile, the fat man in the White House gets a pass for pissing on the reputation any decorated war veteran he considers a personal enemy.

Don’t lecture me about “the left’s hatred for the military.” I served, went to war, and was honorably discharged, as were countless others who now refuse to fall in line behind Donald Trump. I think the man has no honor or integrity. The country I went to war for deserves better.

@Greg:

White House gets a pass for pissing on the reputation any decorated war veteran he considers a personal enemy.

Link proof of that. Oh yeah you never prove any of your inane Wretched Madcow style conspiracy theories.
There apparently is no code in the military about following the CIC orders.

@Greg: Madcow has a cult following????!!!

@Greg:Truth hurts sometimes.

@Deplorable Me: Ut oh looks like Greg didnt remember how our Nam Vets began to be called baby killers and got no warm reception when they came home outside of immediate family.

By McCain’s own account, after three or four days, he cracked. He promised his Vietnamese captors, “I’ll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital.”His Vietnamese capturers soon realized their POW, John Sidney McCain III, came from a well-bred line of American military elites. McCain’s father, John Jr., and grandfather, John Sr., were both full Admirals. He crashed multiple planes any other pilot would have been grounded.