Author: Randy Slovacek

Esper asked for Spencer’s resignation after learning that he had privately proposed to White House officials that if they did not interfere with proceedings against Gallagher, then Spencer would ensure that Gallagher was able to retire as a Navy SEAL, with his Trident insignia.

Spencer’s private proposal to the White House — which he did not share with Esper over the course of several conversations about the matter — contradicted his public position on the Gallagher case, chief Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said in a statement.

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After a Navy SEAL was accused of several war crimes and acquited of most but not all of them, the Navy demoted him. The commando was accused of shooting civilians, murdering a captive Islamic State fighter with a hunting knife in Iraq, and threatening to kill SEALs who reported him. He was ultimately found guilty of bringing discredit to the armed forces by posing for photos with the teenage captive’s dead body. But Donald Trump, after intense lobbying by the man’s family, reversed that decision as Commander in Chief. The Navy then announced plans to remove the man from his unit. Trump pushed back again. From the New York Times:

The secretary of the Navy and the admiral who leads the SEALs have threatened to resign or be fired if plans to expel a commando from the elite unit in a war crimes case are halted by President Trump, administration officials said Saturday.

The high-level pushback to Mr. Trump’s unambiguous assertion on Twitter this past week that the commando, Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, should remain in the unit was an extraordinary development in what was already an extraordinary case, one with few precedents in the history of presidential relations with the American military.

The Navy secretary, Richard V. Spencer, later denied that he had threatened to resign but said disciplinary plans against Chief Gallagher would proceed because he did not consider Mr. Trump’s statement on Twitter to be a formal order. Mr. Spencer added that the president, as commander in chief, had the authority to intervene and that it would stop “the process.”

Chief Gallagher, who counts Mr. Trump as one of his most vocal supporters, was accused of shooting civilians, murdering a captive Islamic State fighter with a hunting knife in Iraq, and threatening to kill SEALs who reported him, among other misconduct. His court-martial ended in acquittal on those charges.

Last Friday, Mr. Trump reversed that demotion, angering Navy officials, including the commander of the SEALs, Rear Adm. Collin Green, who had little choice but to accept the reversal. Nonetheless, they continued with their plans to eject Chief Gallagher from the unit.

The AP reports that the Navy has received word from the White House that Trump’s tweet “is not a formal order.”