US Navy leader Richard Spencer was forced to resign on Sunday (November 25th) following a controversy over the fate of an elite soldier, charged with war crimes and publicly pardoned by President Donald Trump.
Richard Spencer, whom Secretary of Defense Mark Esper had just asked to resign, confirmed his departure in an open letter in which he criticized Donald Trump, commander-in-chief of the US Armed Forces.
"I no longer share the same understanding as the commander-in-chief, who appointed me, with respect to the fundamentals of good order and discipline," wrote Richard Spencer in this letter published by the US media. "I hereby acknowledge the termination of my duties as US Secretary of the Navy."
A few hours earlier, the Secretary of Defense had called Richard Spencer to resign from his position, a civil function.
Loss of trustworthy
Richard Spencer no longer had the "trust" of Mark Esper "concerning his lack of sincerity on conversations with the White House in the treatment of the case of Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher," said the Pentagon in a statement.
Edward Gallagher, a member of the Navy Seals, an elite Navy unit, was tried for war crimes in a hot case in the United States. He was declared on 2 July not guilty of the murder of a prisoner in Iraq in 2017, and acquitted of two attempted murders of Iraqi civilians.
But Private Edward Gallagher was found guilty of posing a body-worn photograph of the young man killed in the company of other soldiers "to the detriment of the armed forces", according to the indictment . He had consequently been degraded by one rank, a sanction which reduced his pay and his retirement. On November 15, Donald Trump overturned the Navy's decision to demote him.
The Defense Department accused the Navy Secretary of secretly proposing to the White House an arrangement whereby, if the Presidency did not interfere with the proceedings against Gallagher, the military would retire without being previously excluded. Navy Seal. Richard Spencer did not communicate this proposal to the Secretary of Defense.
The US Navy initiated an internal procedure that could result in the removal of Edward Gallagher and three other members of the same unit from the Navy Seals' distinctive badge, the Trident, a penalty tantamount to outright exclusion of Seals.
"With all the honors"
But the intervention of Donald Trump had compromised the process. The president said Thursday on Twitter: "The Navy will NOT remove the Trident badge from the Fighter and Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher".
On Sunday, the US president tweeted that Gallagher had been "very badly treated" by the Navy. He indicated that Richard Spencer had been asked to resign because of this case and also for not having taken action regarding a problem of budget overruns.
The US President reiterated that Gallagher would not be excluded from the Navy Seals. "Eddie will quietly retire with all the honors he deserved," he tweeted.
In his open letter announcing his departure, Richard Spencer declares that his conscience did not allow him to comply with what Donald Trump wanted in the Gallagher affair.
"In conscience, I could not obey an order that, in my opinion, violated the sacred oath I took to support and defend the Constitution," he says. The former Navy Secretary adds that maintaining order and discipline in the ranks of the Navy "is an extremely serious job".
The case of Edward Gallagher and other soldiers pardoned in November by Donald Trump has drawn criticism from former US military officials.
The president has decided to pardon first lieutenant Clint Lorance, who was convicted for ordering in 2012 to shoot at a group of three Afghan civilians, two of whom were dead. Before his presidential pardon, Lorance had carried out six of the 19 years in prison to which he had been sentenced.
Donald Trump has also pardoned a former member of the Green Berets, an elite unit of the US Army, accused of the premeditated murder in 2010 of a Taliban suspected of making bombs.
With AFP