The Daily - What Should Happen to the Navy SEAL Chief?

Episode Date: November 25, 2019

An unusual battle has broken out between President Trump and top military commanders over the future of a Navy SEAL commando.Today, how a high-profile war-crimes investigation has prompted a war of words from the commander in chief — rocking the highest levels of the military. Guest: Dave Philipps, a national correspondent covering veterans and the military for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Background reading:Why Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher was investigated for war crimes, and why his fellow SEAL members broke the group’s code of silence to testify against him.Order within his ranks was a “deadly serious business.” Now, Richard V. Spencer, the secretary of the Navy, has resigned after clashing with the president over Chief Gallagher’s demotion.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, an unusual battle has broken out between the U.S. President and the U.S. military over the future of a single Navy SEAL. Dave Phillips on the latest in the story of Edward Gallagher. It's Monday, November 25th. Today, the trial gets underway for the Navy SEAL accused of murdering an Islamic State

prisoner. Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher is charged with premeditated murder. A former Navy SEAL pleaded not guilty today to war crimes. This trial has a plot that could be turned into a movie. A stunning twist at a military tribunal in San Diego just sent shockwaves through the court. Another Navy SEAL testified he was the one who executed an ISIS prisoner in Iraq, not the accused. After about six hours of deliberation, the jury found Chief Eddie Gallagher not guilty on six counts. The only thing he was convicted of was posing in a photo. Posing next to the dead ISIS soldier, holding its head by the hair with the caption that read, got him with my knife.

For that, he was demoted one rank. He will serve no further jail time. Dave, the last time we spoke to you about Navy SEAL Chief Edward Gallagher back in July, he had just been acquitted of murder, but convicted of the less serious crime of posing in a photo with a dead ISIS fighter. And his punishment, he had been demoted of full rank. What has happened to him since? Well, on the day of his acquittal, he walked out of the courtroom in a dress, white uniform, short hair, clean shaven. And he got into a rented Mustang convertible and he drove away. And then he slowly started to ease into what might look like a civilian life. He went back home. His

family has a home in the panhandle of Florida. He started growing this big bushy beard and growing his hair out. He went paddle boarding and he played with his kids and he got a tattoo of the American flag with his wife's eyes over it to celebrate his acquittal. And I should say, he doesn't tell me any of this. He doesn't speak to me and has never spoken to me, but I watch him on Instagram and he and his wife have a joint account and they're regular posters. have a joint account and they're regular posters. So I get to see these parts of his life. And on November 1st, I noticed something different.

He posts photos of himself shaving this big old beard down to a mustache and finally to a clean-shaven military face. And to me, that looks like one thing, that he's getting ready to meet the grooming standards so he can put on his uniform and report back to the SEAL team, where he, I don't believe, has been since he walked out of the courtroom. And what would be the purpose of a meeting like that, given the situation he's in? be that Eddie Gallagher, who's served for 20 years and has notified the Navy that he wants to retire, is going to walk in and his command master chief is going to say, hey, we've got your paperwork for retirement and here's how that's going to process through. You're out the door, you'll be free and clear. But it could also be bad news. A person who's convicted of a crime like that is generally not going to be kept in the SEALs. So he may walk into that office and have the Navy tell him, hey, we're going to pull your trident.

And what exactly does that mean? So the trident is this gold pin that all Navy SEALs wear on their chest. They earn it after this really grueling, difficult, selective training process. And it is a symbol to everyone else that they are this part of this really elite force. And when a commander pulls a SEAL's trident, that means you're fired. You are not worthy of being part of this elite brotherhood. Your career is over. So it's the ultimate indignity or punishment for someone who has achieved the status of Navy SEAL. Well, and especially in a warrior culture,

which has a lot to do with honor and prestige, you're essentially being cast out of the tribe. So what happens at this meeting? That's the interesting thing. I know that he is going into this meeting, and I'm calling various people, his lawyer, people within the SEALs, trying to figure out what's going on. And what they're telling me is, we don't know what's going on. He's just waiting outside of the office,

waiting for this meeting that was supposed to be taking place, and he's not being called in. The meeting just doesn't happen. Right. And what I start to piece together is the reason he's not being called in. The meeting just doesn't happen. Right. And what I start to piece together is the reason he's not getting called in has to do with a man named Rear Admiral Colin Green. And who is Admiral Colin Green?

His official title is Commander, Navy Special Warfare, but really he's the head of the SEALs on both coasts. And he has been in the job about a year and really came in as a reformer. The SEALs had been plagued by some pretty high profile scandals over drug use, sexual assault, even murder. And Admiral Green came out very publicly and said, hey, I'm going to make good order and discipline a core part of my mission. I am going to tighten down on standards and accountability. This stuff that maybe was allowed to slide or was swept under the rug, that's over. And for him, I think Edward Gallagher is a problem. Here's a guy that was accused of some

very serious charges. And when he was acquitted, he was kind of celebrated as a hero, as sort of this rogue operator who should be allowed to do what SEAL's got to do. And that's completely against what Green was trying to impose. So Green sees him as a bug in the system, and he wants him out. So why doesn't Green just fire him? Well, it's complicated. He wants to do it at the right time so that it doesn't look like he's doing it for the wrong reasons.

What I learned in my reporting is he actually started contemplating doing this, pulling Gallagher's trident, a year before Gallagher had even faced trial. well, look, if you sit him at a defense table in the trial and the jury sees that he doesn't have that golden trident pin, they're going to know that he doesn't have your support. And that could bias the jury, which might make a issue for the defense and essentially scuttle the whole trial. So even though you might think it's the right thing to do, Admiral, they were telling him, hold off and wait until the trial's over. Well, that became a problem too, because

I'm pretty sure that Admiral Green and most of the naval hierarchy on the West Coast thought that Chief Gallagher was going to be convicted. There was pretty strong evidence in his case, but he wasn't, at least of the most serious crimes. And so suddenly after the trial, it wasn't really a good time to try and pull Gallagher's trident either, because that would look like retribution. That would look like the commander disagreeing with the decision of the jury. And so his staff told him, Admiral, hold off on this. This isn't the right time. You've got to wait. And so when the appeals for this were done, they thought, okay, we can do this without looking like we're trying to interfere in the judicial process at all. And so they said, okay, let's pull him in and start the process to pull his trident.

And what is that process? and start the process to pull his trident. And what is that process? Well, I mean, technically, in a normal case, there isn't a whole lot. The commander, in this case, Admiral Green, gets to decide who's a SEAL and who isn't. But this is not a normal case. All throughout Gallagher's court-martial, he had gained an enormous amount of attention. And some of that attention was from members of Congress, and some of that attention was from the commander-in-chief

himself, President Trump. President Trump intervened a number of times on Edward Gallagher's behalf during his trial. He ordered the Navy to remove Edward Gallagher from the brig, from prison, even though they didn't want to. He tweeted his congratulations to Edward Gallagher after he was acquitted, saying, quote, glad I could help, unquote. And so Admiral Green realizes, if I'm going to pull a trident, I better put this up the chain of command to make sure it's okay at the top. And so this process starts where he reaches out to first the chief naval officer at the Pentagon, and the Secretary of the Navy, and they talk with the Secretary of Defense, and people from the Pentagon go over to the White House. And that process is still going on when they call Eddie Gallagher in.

And Admiral Green keeps thinking, okay, we're going to get a green light from Washington any minute here, so keep Eddie just sitting outside. But that green light never comes. And so that Friday, without an answer, they say to Eddie Gallagher, you know, thanks very much, chief. You can go home and we'll know more Monday. And so what happens on Monday? On Sunday, a Fox News host named Pete Hegseth tweets that he has had a personal conversation with President Trump and there will be, quote, imminent action, unquote, in the Gallagher case and other military cases.

Now, Pete Hegseth, for years, has been pushing to pardon a number of people convicted or accused of war crimes, including Eddie Gallagher, and often on his show would directly speak to President Trump asking for pardons. And Trump has tweeted back to him whenever he made positive moves for Edward Gallagher. So they have a close relationship. Admiral Green's staff see this tweet saying imminent action is coming. This is in the first week of November. imminent action is coming. This is in the first week of November. And they think, oh, imminent action could mean tomorrow or it could mean Veterans Day. That might be a time when they would do it. So they say, OK, we've got to wait and see what he does on Veterans Day. The funny thing is, Edward Gallagher is even invited to the Veterans Day parade in New York

City where the president is. And I can tell this because I'm watching him on Instagram. And that suggests to me, OK, it's on. You know, the president will make some public announcement at the parade. And so the Navy is still waiting for the shoe to drop. And nothing happens on Veterans Day. But late on Friday, the White House puts out a press release with a really stunning announcement. They are going to pardon two soldiers who are convicted of murder or accused of murder in Afghanistan. And when it comes to Gallagher, the president restores his rank back to chief, which essentially erases what the jury had done.

And it puts the SEALs and Admiral Green in a really hard place. We'll be right back. So, Dave, what does this action by the president mean for Admiral Green as he's debating what to do with Gallagher? A lot of people saw this move from the president as a total exoneration of Chief Gallagher that he's free and clear. But Admiral Green sees something different. He sees that the order does not fully pardon Chief Gallagher. It doesn't say pardon anywhere in the paperwork. All it says is promote this guy back to his original rank. And so Green sees that and thinks,

this is a green light to pull his trident. In other words, he can finally carry out this punishment that he's wanted to carry out, but has held off on. Right. And all the way up through the military, Admiral Green is being told, hey, this is clearly within your authority. If you don't think this guy deserves to be a SEAL

and you're the commander of the SEALs, then you can pull his trident. And that message was delivered to the White House. There was no blowback. So the paperwork is finally drawn up. This is two and a half weeks after Admiral Green had first tried to pull the trident. This is three days after the president

commuted the sentence of Chief Gallagher but did not pardon him. And this is after a weekend of back and forth calls to the Pentagon to get all the clearance all the way up to the White House. And finally, everything's in place and ready to go. And all he has to do is sign this paperwork. Okay, so at last, this is kind of game over. Well, Admiral Green thinks so, and he signs the orders to begin this process to pull the tridents. But Eddie Gallagher has another play that maybe Green didn't see coming.

Welcome back. Tim Palatori is a defense attorney for Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher and joins us now. So you think this is personal, don't you? Absolutely. Why? The next morning, Gallagher's lawyer goes on Fox News right about the time that the president usually watches. His rank was taken away for something that nobody else in the history of the SEAL teams or the military has ever had a general court martial conviction for a photo like this. And he talks about what's going on and how Gallagher, this heroic warfighter who's sacrificed so much for the country, is being treated unfairly.

President Trump takes action on a Friday afternoon. Monday morning, the admiral comes in, brings everybody together and says, I disagree with the president. We're going to take a strident. So what he's doing here is really just an effort to try and publicly humiliate Chief Gallagher and stick it right in the president's eye. And he really plays up that the SEALs are defying their own commander in chief. And this move, which clearly goes against the president's commutation of the sentence, clearly goes against the president's commutation of the sentence is a stick in the eye of the commander in chief. Great result. And we'll see what happens now. And I personally hope that they vote to let him keep his trident and we can move on. And an hour after this airs, the president tweets that he is not going to let the Navy take Edward Gallagher's trident.

Wow. So the president, after undoing the punishment of this military court and restoring Gallagher's title, is now taking the further step of blocking this very symbolically meaningful punishment of removing Gallagher's trident. That's right. And I think the Navy was really dumbfounded.

What does this mean for Rear Admiral Green? And what does this mean for the Navy SEALs? Well, that is a really big question. And I think they don't know. But what's clear is that when you have a Admiral like Green come in and make accountability and discipline really a primary focus, and then you overturn the most high-profile move that he's going to make to try and make that happen,

you undermine him and you also undermine that message that we're going to clean up the SEAL teams. Right. When we first spoke to you, Dave, about the story of Ed Gallagher, what you told us is that it wasn't just the story of one Navy SEAL and what he did and what it meant, that it was really a kind of a referendum on the culture inside the Navy SEALs and more broadly the military,

and that there were these two groups. There were the pirates, the Gallaghers of the world, who felt you can do whatever you want to do in the name of war, and were they going to prevail? Or was this second camp, you call them the Boy Scouts, who insist on rules and accountability, were they going to prevail? And it felt up until the president got involved that the Boy Scout side of this was going to win out. So what message does the president's intervention send in this conflict? I think the message right now is confusion. I mean, on the one hand, the system is working how it should. We have civilian rule of the military for a reason. And if a president thinks that he sees injustice and has the power to act, he's supposed to. But in this case, what he's done is going directly against the military leader in charge of the SEALs.

Admiral Green is saying, hey, we need to double down on ethics, on discipline, on accountability. And the president is saying, hey, sometimes what these guys do is okay, even if it's against the rules. And that's really tough because the SEALs are watching the commander in chief and the commander of the SEALs, and they're not sure what to make of it because they're getting two different messages. Should they move more towards the pirate way of operating? Should they move more towards the Boy Scout way of operating? The SEALs that I'm talking to, they look at this, and I'm not sure they really know.

Dave, thank you. No problem. Since we spoke with Dave Phillips, the Times reported that the leader of the Navy SEALs, Rear Admiral Colin Greene, threatened to resign if President Trump once again intervened on behalf of Gallagher by trying to block the Navy's plan to remove his trident. Such a threat is highly unusual in the military.

I just get a feeling of embarrassment for my community that Admiral Green is letting the ego get the best of him at this point, and he's trying to take my trident because it's all about retaliation. On Sunday morning, Gallagher appeared on Fox News and accused Green of meddling in his case and disobeying the wishes of the president. What the admiral is doing, showing complete insubordination, is not the good example of good order and discipline.

In a tweet on Sunday promoting Gallagher's TV appearance, Trump said, quote, Promoting Gallagher's TV appearance, Trump said, quote, have no fear, all will end well for everyone. A few hours later, the Secretary of the Navy resigned over his handling of the Gallagher case after his superiors learned that he had made a secret proposal to the White House to allow Gallagher to retire as a Navy SEAL. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today.

The evidence is already overwhelming, right? The evidence is already overwhelming. The question is... But you're not in a courtroom, you know that. You have a political bar you have to meet. In interviews on Sunday with NBC and CNN, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Adam Schiff,

said his committee would press ahead with an impeachment report on President Trump's pressure campaign against Ukraine, even without hearing from key witnesses in the White House. Those witnesses, including former National Security Advisor John Bolton and White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, have so far refused to testify. Yes, we'd love to have these witnesses come in, but we're not willing to simply allow them to

wait us out, to stall this proceeding when the facts are already overwhelming. And Mike Bloomberg started as a middle-class kid who had to work his way through college, then built a business from a single room to a global entity. In a video released on Sunday,

Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, announced he would run for president in 2020 as a Democrat, promising to use his vast fortune to defeat President Trump. He could have stopped there. But when New York suffered the terrible tragedy of 9-11, he took charge. Bloomberg faces significant obstacles to winning the Democratic nomination, including his close ties to Wall Street and his support as mayor for aggressive

police tactics that disproportionately targeted Black and Latino men. But now he sees a different kind of menace coming from Washington, so there's no stopping here. As a result, he plans to skip the first few primaries in Iowa and New Hampshire, and in a risky strategy, focus on larger ones in states like California that are held in March. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Bilauro. See you tomorrow.