Esper says Trump ordered him to stop SEAL review board
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Mark Esper declared on Monday that President Donald Trump ordered him to stop a disciplinary review of a Navy SEAL accused of battlefield misconduct, an intervention that raised questions about America’s commitment to international standards for battlefield ethics.
Esper, who initially favored allowing the Navy to proceed with a peerreview board for Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, which could have resulted in him losing his SEAL status, said he was obliged to follow Trump’s order. But he also directed the Pentagon’s legal office to review how service members are educated in the laws of armed conflict and trained to wartime behavioral standards.
“I can control what I can control,” Esper told reporters when asked whether Trump sent the right message to U.S. troops by intervening to stop the Gallagher review. “The president is the commander in chief. He has every right, authority and privilege to do what he wants to do.”
Gallagher was acquitted of murder in the stabbing death of an Islamic State militant captive but convicted by a military jury of posing with the corpse while in Iraq in 2017.
In yet another twist to the Gallagher saga, Esper also made an extraordinary accusation against Richard V. Spencer, whom he fired on Sunday as the civilian leader of the Navy.
Esper said Spencer last week had gone behind his back to propose a secret deal with the White House in which Spencer would fix the outcome of the Gallagher review. Esper said this was a violation of the military chain of command and that Spencer acknowledged his misstep.
Through a Navy spokesman, Spencer declined requests for comment on Esper’s allegation. However, in a resignation letter Sunday he had said he could not in good conscience follow an order that he believed would undermine the principle of good order and discipline in the military — suggesting that he had been ordered to stop the peerreview process for Gallagher.
Trump began to get involved in the Gallagher case in the spring after Bernard Kerik, a former business partner to his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani became an advocate for the family and made appearances in conservative media.
The SEAL also changed his defense team to include Marc Mukasey, a lawyer for the Trump real estate company.
The president has tweeted in support of Gallagher, praising the sailor’s service and saying the case was “handled very badly from the beginning.”
Earlier this month, Trump restored Gallagher’s rank, which had been reduced in his military jury conviction.
Trump also pardoned two soldiers a former Army special forces soldier set to stand trial next year in the killing of a suspected Afghan bombmaker in 2010 and an Army officer who had been convicted of murder for ordering his soldiers to fire on three unarmed Afghan men in 2012, killing two.