Posted on 11/27/2019 4:57:35 AM PST by Kaslin
The Constitution expressly grants the authority to the president to issue pardons, and this power has been repeatedly invoked by presidents beginning with George Washington. The lack of respect given to President Trump in connection with his relatively small number of presidential pardons is a disgrace.
This presidential prerogative is particularly important when the President, as Commander-in-Chief, pardons a military officer under his direct chain of command. Presidential pardons of servicemen who put their own lives on the line in defense of our freedoms should receive heightened respect by all.
Reports are that Navy SEAL Special Chief Eddie Gallagher’s platoon mutinied against him and prompted the overzealous prosecution of him for crimes he did not commit. He was nearly fully acquitted by a military jury in a system that rarely sides with an accused soldier or sailor.
A blizzard of allegations were made against Gallagher in an apparent attempt by some of his subordinates to destroy him. When it came to testifying in a court of law, however, the allegations virtually disappeared and the prosecutors should have dropped their case.
Gallagher’s acquittal at trial on all of the serious allegations against him vindicated the sailor, and embarrassed the prosecutors. But instead of backing off from their mistake, the Deep State doubled down against Gallagher.
The Secretary of the Navy, Richard Spencer, is a former Wall Street banker lacking in combat experience. His skills are not in hand-to-hand fighting against the enemy, but in navigating the bureaucracy of the Pentagon.
Spencer resisted the order by his Commander-in-Chief, President Trump, to restore Gallagher to his full rank, and to move on to more important issues. But in a textbook example of intransigence by the Swamp, Secretary Richard Spencer persisted in defying Trump’s commands concerning the Gallagher case.
Underlings, particularly in the military, should not be trying to negotiate around their superiors. Trump did not command the Navy to do anything immoral or contrary to the Constitution, and Spencer should have complied with his duty to obey orders.
After he was fired, Spencer appeared on television to criticize our President. When asked the obvious question on CBS to explain “what’s wrong with following a lawful order from the commander in chief?”, Spencer admitted, “Nothing.”
But then Spencer added that “I could not, in my conscience, do this.” His “conscience” somehow prevented him from honoring the equivalent of a presidential pardon?
Spencer and other Trump critics need to take a close look, perhaps for their first time, at Article II, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution: “The President ... shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.”
President Trump’s first pardon as a president was issued to Joe Arpaio, the Arizona sheriff who fought for years on the front lines against illegal immigration. Yet the ACLU persuaded a Clinton-appointed federal judge to ignore the pardon, and the Ninth Circuit is now considering Sheriff Joe’s appeal.
It is a bit mystifying that liberals would be so resistant to presidential pardons when they were used so often by Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Clinton famously pardoned a long list of his friends during his last evening in the White House, and his supporters did not protest.
The soldiers whom Trump has pardoned are not his buddies or donors, as some of the recipients of Clinton’s pardons were. In addition to restoring Navy SEAL Chief Gallagher to his rank, Trump issued pardons to two Army officers, 1st Lt. Clint Lorance and Major Mathew Golsteyn.
Maj. Golsteyn had been awarded the Silver Star for heroism that included enduring enemy fire and assisting a wounded Afghan soldier, but was charged with murder of a suspected bombmaker based primarily on an interview Golsteyn gave on Fox News.
The notion that armchair lawyers should be prosecuting our servicemen for being supposedly too tough on the enemy lacks the support of the American people.
Yet the knee-jerk resistance by the Deep State to Trump began with his very first days in office. Sally Yates, an Obama-appointed holdover in the Justice Department, was fired for defying another policy set by the President because she disagreed with it.
Navy SEAL Special Chief Eddie Gallagher served in combat with valor, fighting hard against some of the fiercest terrorists in the world. The allegations made against Gallagher of violent wrongdoing were evidently false and never proven in court.
The disrespect for Trump’s pardons smokes the Never-Trumpers out. Let’s hope they at least refrain from criticizing another long-standing presidential tradition, the ceremonial pardon of a live turkey for Thanksgiving.
Fix'd! Republicans forever playing the short game.
Not really. Progressives do not believe in objective reality, truth, or the rule of law.
They believe in power, and that anything is justified to obtain and keep it.
Arpiao is the one appealing and the judge ignored nothing. Legally accepting a pardon removes the consequences of a conviction but doesn't remove the conviction itself. Arpiao is in court trying to do that. It's unlikely he will be successful.
You said it.
Respect needed for [President] Trump’s pardons?
They don’t think he’s president That’s the problem. That and Obama fundamentally transformed RW pentagon. No way this kind of insubordination has been tolerated until now
You mean Clinton’s last minute Going Out of Business Sale? The reported price of Marc Rich’s pardon alone was $550,000. No way to know how much Clinton took him for under the table.
And those that commit treason, sedition or steal State secrets should be put away in a dark hole or hung
WTF. This is unbelievable. Effin Obama has ruined our military
That surprises you? He hated the military after all.
“The Secretary of the Navy, Richard Spencer, is a former Wall Street banker lacking in combat experience. His skills are not in hand-to-hand fighting against the enemy, but in navigating the bureaucracy of the Pentagon. “
And he slammed President Trump for “not understanding the roles/intricacies of hand to hand combat or need for good order and discipline” as he had zero first-hand knowledge of combat and is showing his ass in a display of total lack of good order and discipline....ironic.
The lack of respect is more that just a disgrace. The lack of respect given to President Trump is additional evidence of the unbridled, blind leftist hate for America.
Will these leftists destroy themselves with their obsession with destroying our President? For them the world has stopped. All they do is hate; will they drown In their own excrement? It is amazing to behold.
The President is exercising his rights to help the forgotten men and women of this country, unlike other Presidents who somehow made money through their selective pardons.
Maybe it is time to start pushing back against communists and Democrats who have no respect for our constitution, laws, and representative government.
In the end, it was Spencer who showed lack of order and discipline and he still won’t shut up; book deal likely. Good riddance.
I admit I am curious what Gallagher did that made his comrades in arms want to ruin him so much. That part of the story still seems odd.
The principle of humane treatment requires that civilians be treated humanely at all times.Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention prohibits violence to life and person (including cruel treatment and torture), the taking of hostages, humiliating and degrading treatment, and execution without regular trial against non-combatants, including persons hors de combat (wounded, sick and shipwrecked).
Military and civilians are entitled to respect for their physical and mental integrity, their honour, family rights, religious convictions and practices, and their manners and customs. This principle of humane treatment has been affirmed by the GC as a norm of customary international law, applicable in both international and non-international armed conflicts.
Chief Gallagher, as a senior NCO, and supervisor in an active armed conflict, is strongly required to stay within the guidelines of GC. And he is aware of its existence and has been ordered to stay within it. By his actions going public, he has placed our members in danger downrange to include military and civilians.
Remember the Alamo? Well our opponents will remember the actions taken by Chief Gallagher and will apply them to captured Americans using far worse actions like public be headings and torture.
Trump can pardon and take away the punishment, but he can’t take away the determination of guilt. Chief Gallagher is guilty of the articles under the UCMJ he violated.
Many of us have served and have gone to great pains, risked our life, risked the lives of our comrades, in order to uphold the values of this country, which include the fact that we hold ourselves to a higher standard when it comes to war and the law of war. And the idea that none of that matters at the end of the day is a slap in the face to all of us. That these people will be trotted out as heroes is a moral injury to every veteran.
And furthermore, commanders would start trying to avoid presidential interference by staying off his radar. It’s going to drive a lot of things underground that Trump is never going to hear about and I think the senior commanders within the services may just hide things from him. Or they may elect to not even take action. And then we are truly no better than the animals we make out to be our uncivilized opponents.
rwood
How is posing with one's unit lined up behind a dead body lying on the ground, with calm faces and no shenanigans, the equivalent of public beheadings and torture, pray tell?
“How is posing with one’s unit lined up behind a dead body lying on the ground, with calm faces and no shenanigans, the equivalent of public beheadings and torture, pray tell?”
There were other pictures besides the one you mentioned. See below:
From the Navy Times:
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/07/03/seal-sentenced-for-posing-with-dead-detainee/
” One image shows him clutching the hair of the corpse with one hand and holding a knife in another.”
“I put a black eye on the two communities that I love — the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Navy — specifically the SEAL community,” he said.
This Navy Times, like the Air Force or Army Times, is not a liberal publication. It is written for the military services by the military services. And they identified the pictures in the article that are in question.
One of the biggest problems we can have in trying to discourage the mistreatment of our prisoners, or deceased, is having this type of publicity get out. We are already working with a questionable phylum of people that are willing to die for their God by killing as many infidels as each one can. They don’t bargain, they don’t tell the truth, and they have been supporting this type of behavior for centuries. So to antagonize them with a behavior that is substandard to the rules we follow, the Geneva convention, and to mock their beliefs, is another excuse for them to hit someone somewhere to, what they consider, get even. And if they have prisoners, you can be assured they will kill or torture them with relish to harm us. That’s what terrorism is about. This was why the killing of Bin Laden was an issue.
These people, the Islamist enemies of the US, are animals, not what we could consider humane people. And their system of financing and political support, along with their brain washing and training facilities scattered all over the world to include different states in the US, is a strong display of their danger to the world. And we are trying to stop them, not invite further terrorism and harm more people.
rwood
Thank you for your further explanation. I had only seen the one photo.
Just as this war had new dimensions in the damage done by plastic explosives, shoulder-fired missles and child terrorists, as well as new emergency medical responses in theater, I concede it is important to tailor new troop behaviors against this particular enemy, to minimize avoidable lethal retaliation.
This case was complicated by bad behavior on the part of the JAG officers, something that happened also with Derrick Miller and several others who were caught up in the lies not only of the muslim “witnesses” and bystanders, but also those of the prosecutors. I think Trump wanted Gallagher freed because of those procedural missteps more than the photo faux pas.
“I think Trump wanted Gallagher freed....”
And that’s my problem. Gallagher was never imprisoned or forced to extra duty. The only thing he did lose was a stripe, meaning time and money, and possible command acceptance of a base of preference (BOP). And it would reflect on his retirement stipend. But considering he displayed a deficiency in his actions by this gaff, I’m not sure he warrants his rank and responsibilities as he can’t follow orders and has to display the pounding on his chest this way.
But in the end, even though he may have put people in further danger with this act and disobeyed the orders of his superiors, he loses nothing. He retires at full rank, given credit for retiring in the SEAL career field while giving the NAVY a bad portrayal until it can be forgotten. And there will be a lot of Ilamic terrorists that won’t forget soon.
rwood
You removed the most important part of my sentence, which came after "because." I already heard your earlier complaint.
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