The Navy's botched case against Eddie Gallagher and his superiors

NY Times:

Navy Drops Effort to Expel From SEALs 3 Officers Linked to Gallagher

After President Trump intervened to stop the Navy from disciplining Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, the service called off reviews of three SEAL officers who were the chief’s superiors in Iraq.

Chief Gallagher's brother says the Navy was pushing a false narrative about his brother:

In this partisan environment, people were quick to judge President Donald J. Trump’s reinstatement of anchors to my brother, Special Warfare Operator Chief Edward “Eddie” Gallagher.

Out of the woodwork came former military attorneys, indignant Pentagon officials and your typical Washington establishment types.

Their views were mainly the same. The president’s actions were a moral hazard! What message will it send our troops? What of good order and discipline?

I have one question for these people: Where in the hell were you the past year and a half?

Eddie’s case and court-martial trial revealed a massive cancer within the military justice system, doing irreparable damage to troop morale that may last decades.

I didn’t hear a damn thing from these harbingers of moral decency when that was exposed.

Where was their outrage when the Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents dragged my brother’s kids in the street at gunpoint in their underwear? (A fact NCIS denied to this very publication until under oath admitted that, yes, they did drag my nephews nearly naked into the streets of San Diego when Ed wasn’t home).

Where were these critics when investigators admitted Eddie’s entire pretrial imprisonment was based on a lie, forcing him to spend eight months in a sex offender brig for nothing?

Thanksgiving is nearing, so please imagine having to spend it like Ed did last year, greeting your kids in jail where they had to wear robes so they didn’t arouse other inmates.

Where were these guardians of moral decency when prosecutors spied on our attorneys?

When they hid exculpatory evidence?

Illegally leaked slanted information to the media to taint a jury pool?

Lied to members of Congress and then tried to cover it all up when they got caught?

They were nowhere, because their outrage is hollow and they don’t have clue what they’re talking about.

The moral hazard is a system that sends troops to war and then sacrifices them to some perverse political agenda when they return home. This is what the president is trying to fix.

I wish the world saw Eddie’s trial. I wish people could sit in the gallery and witness as we did the accusations crumble, Ed’s accusers exposed for their deceit, and how broken the process really is.

Day after day revealed biased investigators, inept prosecutors, unlawful command influence — the list goes on and on.

To see the full list, we filed a 16-page Inspector General complaint here.

For nearly two years, the Navy peddled lies to news outlets that Eddie had shot a little girl and stabbed to death a dying ISIS fighter.

But during the trial, it turns out those accusing him weren’t even in Eddie’s sniper hide. Those that were with him daily — Ed’s spotter and signals intelligence operator — testified every single one of his shots was legit and that it likely was actually Islamic State, not Ed, that shot the girl.

As for the dying ISIS fighter, the government’s own witness admitted that it was he, not Eddie, that ended his life.
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It looks like the President believes the Navy botched the case against Chief Gallagher while many in the media still believe the case the Navy failed to make against him.  I get the impression they overcharged Gallagher and could not make the case.  As a former prosecutor I always felt if I had a strong case, it was better to undercharge them and guarantee a conviction.  You also get more guilty pleas when you do that.  If what the brother of the accused said is true it certainly looks like an injustice has been averted by the President's action.