The top Navy SEAL, Rear Admiral Collin Green, will notify Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher and three officers that their case is being sent to a review board which could end in their expulsion from the SEALs.
“This is a review of their suitability to be a SEAL,” a Navy officer said. The action would come less than a week after Mr. Trump intervened in the military justice case and restored Eddie Gallagher’s rank.
The president’s restoration of Gallagher’s rank and clemency toward two other former Army soldiers was welcomed by many conservatives but questioned by critics like former Joint Chiefs Chairman General Martin Dempsey, who said in a tweet that that without evidence proving the innocence of or injustice against the accused servicemembers, their “wholesale pardon…signals our troops and allied we don’t take the Law of Armed Conflict seriously.” He called it an “abdication of moral responsibility,” CBS News reported.
Dempsey was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2011 to 2015 under Barack Obama.
Absent evidence of innocence or injustice the wholesale pardon of US servicemembers accused of war crimes signals our troops and allies that we don’t take the Law of Armed Conflict seriously. Bad message. Bad precedent. Abdication of moral responsibility. Risk to us. #Leadership
— GEN(R) Marty Dempsey (@Martin_Dempsey) May 21, 2019
CBS reports that the action was taken by Green, who is the head of the Navy Special Warfare Command but has the backing of both the secretary of the Navy and the chief of Naval Operations. The officer explained that this is an administrative action and not affected by the President’s action.
Gallagher was found not guilty of killing an ISIS terrorist but was not cleared of posing with the dead terrorist’s body. Others posed as well but he had the highest rank.
Is this a partisan play? If they are doing this to hurt the President, it’s vindictive and cruel, but who knows.
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