Former Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer.
The Defense Secretary has fired Navy Secretary Richard Spencer over his actions in the Eddie Gallagher Navy Seals case. The Hill. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said that Spencer had lost his confidence after it was found out that he went over his bosses head to offer President Trump a deal that Spencer didn't support publicly. The deal also seemed to propose to fix the outcome of a Navy review board that would have decided if Gallagher was allowed to keep his Navy Seal Trident and rank. The incident centers around Eddie Gallagher, a Navy Seal who was charged with war crimes after killing an ISIS fighter, but was acquitted of all charges except posing with s corpse. President Trump intervened after the acquittal restoring Gallagher's rank and ordering that he be allowed to remain a Navy Seal. The President had been extremely critical of the handling of the Gallagher case. President Trump has nominated Ambassador Ken Braithwaite to replace Spencer.
I was not pleased with the way that Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher’s trial was handled by the Navy. He was treated very badly but, despite this, was completely exonerated on all major charges. I then restored Eddie’s rank. Likewise, large cost overruns from past administration’s.....— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 24, 2019
My Comment:....honors that he has earned, including his Trident Pin. Admiral and now Ambassador to Norway Ken Braithwaite will be nominated by me to be the new Secretary of the Navy. A man of great achievement and success, I know Ken will do an outstanding job!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 24, 2019
A quick aside, Richard V. Spencer has nothing to do with notorious racist and media darling Richard Spencer, who was involved in the Charlottesville rally. The names the same but that's it. No matter what you think of the former Navy Secretary it sucks for him that his name is always going to be right next to that guys name.
All of the articles about this case are quite confusing. They seem to be downplaying the fact that Spencer offered the President to fix a Navy hearing, which is a huge no-no. That kind of thing where the outcome is predetermined before any kind of review is done is not how America works. It may be how the impeachment inquiry is going but that's not something the government can tolerate.
It showed that Spencer was being very dishonest. Publicly he is saying that the President was not following the rule of law. But Spencer himself was failing that very standard by trying to fix a review that may have been fixed.
And we aren't quite sure what Spencer was trying to do with the review. It's possible that he wanted to screw over President Trump. For one thing he could have promised that Gallagher would surive the review while knowing that the outcome would be the exact opposite. This would be against the President's wishes and would be a major stab in the back. But even if he did follow through, it's possible he would have gone to the press saying that the President offered him a dirty deal on Gallagher when it was himself that offered it! And the anti-Trump media would eat it up, never once investigating if it was true or not.
Furthermore, it was clear that Spencer wasn't respecting the chain of command. Whatever you think of President Trump's orders in this situation, they were indeed orders. As a military officer, you cannot refuse an order from the President of the United States just because you disagree with it. That's not how the military works.
Spencer also ignored his chain of command. He went behind Secretary Esper's back and bypassed him to make his offer to the President. I am guessing he did so because he knew Epser was going to shoot him down and wanted to make sure Trump heard his offer. That's not how things are supposed to work either, you don't bypass your boss this way.
So why did Spencer do all of this? My guess is that he is an anti-Trump person and he was indeed trying to trap him. Doing so would have at the very least gotten him a full time job as a media talking head and would have been profitable for him. And he may have had delusions of grandeur about taking down the President for good.
The other possibility is that he was one of the old generation of military people that believe that optics was more important than actually winning wars. He may have believed that Gallagher's behavior was so egregious that he couldn't be allowed to be seen as getting off the hook, despite his acquittal. Even a review board that would allow him to keep his rank and title as a Navy Seal would air more of the accusations against him and I still believe that Spencer was lying when he said that the review board would let him keep his trident.
Either way, it's always shocking how bad President Trump's personnel decisions have worked out for him. There seems to be a common theme were the President orders his people to do something, properly and legally, and they refuse. Spencer is not the first person in Trump's administration to act this way. I think it's pretty clear that a lot of them aren't on board with either his agenda or his personal style and it's been fairly detrimental. Hopefully the rest of Trump's staff has been put on notice by this firing.
All of the articles about this case are quite confusing. They seem to be downplaying the fact that Spencer offered the President to fix a Navy hearing, which is a huge no-no. That kind of thing where the outcome is predetermined before any kind of review is done is not how America works. It may be how the impeachment inquiry is going but that's not something the government can tolerate.
It showed that Spencer was being very dishonest. Publicly he is saying that the President was not following the rule of law. But Spencer himself was failing that very standard by trying to fix a review that may have been fixed.
And we aren't quite sure what Spencer was trying to do with the review. It's possible that he wanted to screw over President Trump. For one thing he could have promised that Gallagher would surive the review while knowing that the outcome would be the exact opposite. This would be against the President's wishes and would be a major stab in the back. But even if he did follow through, it's possible he would have gone to the press saying that the President offered him a dirty deal on Gallagher when it was himself that offered it! And the anti-Trump media would eat it up, never once investigating if it was true or not.
Furthermore, it was clear that Spencer wasn't respecting the chain of command. Whatever you think of President Trump's orders in this situation, they were indeed orders. As a military officer, you cannot refuse an order from the President of the United States just because you disagree with it. That's not how the military works.
Spencer also ignored his chain of command. He went behind Secretary Esper's back and bypassed him to make his offer to the President. I am guessing he did so because he knew Epser was going to shoot him down and wanted to make sure Trump heard his offer. That's not how things are supposed to work either, you don't bypass your boss this way.
So why did Spencer do all of this? My guess is that he is an anti-Trump person and he was indeed trying to trap him. Doing so would have at the very least gotten him a full time job as a media talking head and would have been profitable for him. And he may have had delusions of grandeur about taking down the President for good.
The other possibility is that he was one of the old generation of military people that believe that optics was more important than actually winning wars. He may have believed that Gallagher's behavior was so egregious that he couldn't be allowed to be seen as getting off the hook, despite his acquittal. Even a review board that would allow him to keep his rank and title as a Navy Seal would air more of the accusations against him and I still believe that Spencer was lying when he said that the review board would let him keep his trident.
Either way, it's always shocking how bad President Trump's personnel decisions have worked out for him. There seems to be a common theme were the President orders his people to do something, properly and legally, and they refuse. Spencer is not the first person in Trump's administration to act this way. I think it's pretty clear that a lot of them aren't on board with either his agenda or his personal style and it's been fairly detrimental. Hopefully the rest of Trump's staff has been put on notice by this firing.
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