\n The US defense secretary Monday defended the decision to sack his navy secretary, saying he went behind his back to make a deal with the White House over a convicted Navy SEAL's future.\n<\/p>\n
\n Mark Esper told reporters Richard Spencer, the Navy's top civilian, admitted he had gone around Esper and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley.\n<\/p>\n
\n Esper and Milley were holding their own discussions with President Donald Trump last week about the SEAL's case, which caused a rare public split between the Pentagon leadership and the US commander in chief over military justice.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"We were completely caught off guard by this information, and realized that it undermined everything we have been discussing with the president,\" Esper said of Spencer's secret talks.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"We have a chain of command that should be followed and that chain of command must be kept informed,\" he said.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Secretary Spencer broke these rules and thus lost my trust and confidence.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n Spencer was fired on Sunday amid a dispute over whether Edward Gallagher, a Navy SEAL accused of war crimes in a high-profile case but convicted of a lesser offense, should be demoted and expelled from the elite commando force.\n<\/p>\n
\n Gallagher, a SEAL sniper and medic, was originally accused of premeditated murder after allegedly stabbing to death a captured, wounded Islamic State fighter in Iraq in May 2017.\n<\/p>\n
\n After Gallagher went on trial at the beginning of 2019, his case became a cause celebre in conservative media, championed especially by Fox News, and Trump voiced support for him.\n<\/p>\n
\n In March the president intervened to have him taken out of a Navy jail and placed in a Navy hospital, where he had more freedom.\n<\/p>\n
\n - 'Distracting' -\n<\/p>\n
\n In July, he was acquitted of murder by a military jury, but convicted of having posed for a picture next to the body of a dead Islamic State fighter.\n<\/p>\n
\n He was demoted and the navy moved to remove his official Trident pin, an insignia that signified he remained a member in good standing of the elite group.\n<\/p>\n
\n Trump intervened again, to order the trident pin and rank restored, saying he would not be expelled from the force.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Eddie will retire peacefully with all of the honors that he has earned,\" Trump tweeted.\n<\/p>\n
\n Esper conformed that Spencer had threatened to resign over the case, which military experts said risked undermining confidence in the Pentagon's system of justice.\n<\/p>\n
\n But Esper said that while he and Milley sought a resolution with Trump, Spencer, a subordinate to both, had tried to cut his own deal with the White House.\n<\/p>\n
\n Spencer \"was completely forthright in admitting what had been going on,\" Esper told reporters Monday.\n<\/p>\n
\n In a letter to Trump on Sunday, Spencer explained his resistance to the president's interference in the case.\n<\/p>\n
\n He wrote that he could not \"in good conscience obey an order that I believe violates the sacred oath I took... to support and defend the Constitution.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n He added that his responsibility was \"to maintain good order and discipline\" throughout the navy's ranks. \"I regard this as deadly seriously business,\" he said.\n<\/p>\n
\n Esper said Monday that the case had dragged on too long and had become \"distracting.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Eddie Gallagher will retain his Trident as the commander in chief directed, and will retire at the end of this month,\" he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The US defense secretary Monday defended the decision to sack his navy secretary, saying he went behind his back to make a deal with the White House over a convicted Navy SEAL's future. Mark Esper told reporters Richard Spencer, the Navy's top civilian, admitted he had gone around Esper and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-43049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n