Republican Activist Behind Pardon Bid For Veterans Charged With War Crimes

David “Bull” Gurfein, head of the United American Patriots, is a Republican activist who has been lobbying on behalf of military veterans accused of war crimes — including Edward Gallagher, the U.S. Navy SEAL court-martialed and charged with premeditated murder for allegedly killing a captured member of ISIS in Iraq. The activities of Gurfein and the United American Patriots are the subject of a new Vice Newsreport.

Gurfein has been encouraging the Trump Administration to pardon Gallagher and other veterans accused of war crimes. In an eight-minute video Vice Newshas posted on Twitter, Gurfein is seen at an event in honor of Derrick Miller — a National Guard member who killed an unarmed Afghan in 2010. Gurfein is seen welcoming Miller after his release on parole following nine years of detention.

Vice Newsnotes that Gurfein is a retired military veteran who enlisted in the U.S. Marines at 17 and went on to fight in the Persian Gulf War as well as in Afghanistan — and that in the year since he took over United American Patriots, the organization “has raised and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars defending service members accused of crimes in war zones and bringing the cases to the attention of lawmakers with the hopes that they might take them up with President Trump.”

View the complete June 20 article by Alex Henderson from AlterNet on the National Memo website here.