Video interviews and group texts obtained by The Times show men describing their platoon leader in grim terms.
The Navy SEALs showed up one by one, wearing hoodies and T-shirts instead of uniforms, to tell investigators what they had seen. Visibly nervous, they shifted in their chairs, rubbed their palms and pressed their fists against their foreheads. At times they stopped in midsentence and broke into tears.
“Sorry about this,” Special Operator First Class Craig Miller, one of the most experienced SEALs in the group, said as he looked sideways toward a blank wall, trying to hide that he was weeping. “It’s the first time — I’m really broken up about this.”
Video recordings of the interviews obtained by The New York Times, which have not been shown publicly before, were part of a trove of Navy investigative materials about the prosecution of Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher on war crimes charges including murder. Continue reading
President Donald Trump has been an outspoken defender of Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher, the Navy SEAL who was prosecuted for murder for allegedly killing a captured prisoner of war and ISIS fighter in Iraq. Gallagher was acquitted in July, and officials for the U.S. Navy announced on Wednesday that military prosecutors in the case would be