In the latest example of presidential overstepping, Donald Trump ordered the Pentagon not to remove a Navy SEAL convicted of posing with the corpse of a teen captive, Defense Secretary Mark Esper confirmed to reporters Monday.
Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher was not only convicted for his inhumane photo work while on deployment in 2017 to Iraq, he was also accused of fatally stabbing the teen with a hunting knife, shooting civilians, and threatening to kill SEALs who told on him, The New York Times reported.
“I spoke with the president on Sunday,” Esper said at the Pentagon. “He gave me the order that Eddie Gallagher will retain his Trident pin.”
Although the president had repeatedly tweeted his devotion to the war criminal, Esper’s statement confirmed Trump’s official order regarding the pin, which invokes the coveted SEAL status. Navy officials who had been seeking further review of Gallagher and whether he should remain in the SEALS program seemed to have lost the war.
Defense Department officials indicated to reporters no additional hearings would happen. “The Navy follows the lawful orders of the President,” Rear Adm. Charlie Brown, a Navy spokesman, said on Thursday in a statement to Daily Kos.
Esper’s announcement follows the forced resignation of a now-former Navy official entangled in the mess, Navy Secretary Richard Spencer. “I cannot in good conscience obey an order that I believe violates the sacred oath I took in the presence of my family, my flag and my faith to support and defend the Constitution of the United States,” Spencer said in a letter of resignation addressed to the president Sunday.