Eddie Gallagher

Edward R. Gallagher is a retired United States Navy SEAL. He came to national attention in the United States after he was charged in September 2018 with ten offenses under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. In the most prominently reported offense, he was accused of fatally stabbing an injured 17-year-old ISIS prisoner, photographing himself with the corpse, and sending the photo to friends.

On July 2, 2019, Gallagher was convicted of posing for a photograph with the corpse, but was acquitted of murder charges after Special Operator Corey Scott, a member of Gallagher's team granted immunity as a witness against him, testified that he, not Gallagher, killed the prisoner.

Career Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on May 29, 1979, Gallagher graduated from Bishop Dwenger High School. He enlisted in the United States Navy in 1999. Gallagher had eight overseas deployments, including service in both the Iraq War and the war in Afghanistan. Following SEAL Qualification Training (SQT), he received the NEC 5326 as a Combatant Swimmer (SEAL), entitled to wear the Special Warfare Insignia.

During his service, he was decorated for valor several times, including two Bronze Stars. He received positive evaluations from his superiors within the SEALs, and served as an instructor in the SEALs BUD/S program for recruits. Only after the reports gained visibility outside the SEAL community, were they acted upon and referred to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS).

On September 11, 2018, Gallagher was arrested at Camp Pendleton and charged with premeditated murder, attempted murder, obstruction of justice, and other offenses. On October 18, Lieutenant Jacob Portier of Gallagher's platoon was also charged with failing to properly notify his superiors within the chain of command and destruction of evidence.

Prosecutors alleged that Gallagher's sniper work during his 2017 deployment became "reckless" and "bloodthirsty". Gallagher also was reportedly known for indiscriminately spraying neighborhoods with rockets and machine gun fire with no known enemy force in the region.

According to the original Navy prosecutor Chris Czaplak, "Chief Gallagher decided to act like the monster the terrorists accuse us of being. He handed ISIS propaganda manna from heaven. His actions are everything ISIS says we are." because the Navy did not begin a formal investigation for nearly a year after the reports were made and by then much of the physical evidence, such as the bodies of those alleged to be killed by Gallagher, were not recoverable.

The prosecution's case relied largely on eyewitness testimony, which the defense sought to discredit as merely that of spiteful malcontents who disliked Gallagher's gruff leadership style. The defense argued that Gallagher's text messages merely reflected dark comedy in a stressful situation, and that his more outrageous boasts, such as killing twenty people a day, were clearly impossible. For the most serious charge of murder of a prisoner, according to the defense, Gallagher stabbed a corpse and embellished a story out of misplaced bravado; the prisoner had already died of his wounds.

In May 2019, defense lawyers accused the prosecution of sending both them and Navy Times reporter Carl Prine an email that included a web beacon. The judge later ordered that the chief prosecutor, Commander Christopher Czaplak, be dismissed from the case and replaced as a result of the incident.

On May 8, 2019, then Republican congressman Duncan D. Hunter showed combat video footage from a helmet camera to a group of legislators that he said exonerated Gallagher of one of the charges against him. Hunter told reporters that he intended to ask for a presidential pardon if Gallagher was convicted. This potential pardon was hotly criticized in the Washington Post'''s opinion pages. During a podcast interview on May 28, 2019, Hunter said that he himself had posed for pictures with a dead enemy combatant and that American artillery fire had killed "hundreds" of Iraqi civilians in and around Fallujah.

On June 20, 2019, during Gallagher's trial, one of the platoon medics from Gallagher's team testifying as a prosecution witness said that although Gallagher did stab the ISIS fighter, he did not actually kill him. The medic, Special Operator First Class Corey Scott who testified under an immunity agreement, testified that he himself had killed the wounded prisoner by covering his breathing tube and asphyxiating him. Scott called it a "mercy killing" and argued that the victim would have been tortured by Iraqi personnel because of his connection to the Islamic State.

Prosecutors were taken by surprise by Scott's testimony, since the medic had never given this version of events to them or Navy investigators. This account was also contrary to the statements of at least seven other SEALs

Court martial result

Conviction and demotion The jury for Gallagher's court-martial was composed of five enlisted men, including a Navy SEAL and four Marines, plus a Navy commander and a Marine chief warrant officer, after the defense had rejected several other candidates. On July 2, 2019, they acquitted him on six of the seven original charges but found him guilty of the seventh charge of "wrongfully posing for an unofficial picture with a human casualty". That charge carried a maximum prison sentence of four months. Since Gallagher had already served more time during his pre-trial confinement, he was released.

After the trial, it was considered possible that Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Corey Scott, the SEAL Medic whose surprise testimony dismantled the prosecution's case, would be prosecuted for perjury; however, Chief of Naval Operations John M. Richardson stripped Navy prosecutors of their authority to charge Scott with perjury. The same jury that tried Gallagher sentenced him on July 3, 2019, for posing with the corpse. The jury gave Gallagher, who had already served the maximum prison time for this charge, a demotion from Chief Petty Officer (E-7) to Petty Officer First Class (E-6); this was lighter than other potential punishments, such as an Other Than Honorable (OTH) discharge, which were not handed down. Four weeks later, President Trump announced over Twitter he had directed the Secretary of the Navy to revoke Navy Achievement Medals given to members of the prosecution team that oversaw Gallagher's case.

After the closure of the case, Gallagher and his initial lawyer entered a dispute in August 2019. According to his first lawyer, Colby Vokey, Gallagher did not pay Vokey's specified rate, and he filed an arbitration claim against Gallagher. According to Gallagher, Vokey performed no useful services and was bilking him. Gallagher cut ties with Vokey and the United American Patriots in March 2019 and directed supporters to use a different non-profit to raise funds for his defense, the Navy SEALs Fund.

Request for clemency Gallagher and his lawyers made an appeal for clemency at the conclusion of the court martial; such requests are frequently made, although rarely successful. Because of the charged nature of the case, this request went high up the chain of command. The request was initially rejected by Rear Admiral Bette Bolivar. After President Trump brought the issue up at a meeting with Chief of Naval Operations John M. Richardson, Admiral Richardson took up the request personally.

Presidential intervention The clemency decision ended up moot: in November 2019, President Trump announced that Gallagher's demotion would be reversed. A week earlier, Navy secretary Richard V. Spencer had sent Trump a note asking him not to intervene again.

On November 21, President Trump tweeted, "The Navy will NOT be taking away Warfighter and Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher's Trident Pin. This case was handled very badly from the beginning. Get back to business!" Spencer responded that terminating this probe could be done only via an official written order from the White House. Associates said Spencer would resign if such an order is issued, believing it undercuts his authority and that of Rear Adm. Collin Green, commander of the SEALs.

On November 24, 2019, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said he had learned that Spencer made a private offer to the White House that if the White House did not interfere, he would guarantee that Gallagher would keep his Trident pin. This offer contradicted Spencer's public position and was kept secret from Esper. Esper immediately fired Spencer for going outside the chain of command. The next day (Nov. 25) Esper said that Trump had ordered him to allow Gallagher to keep his Trident Pin, so that Gallagher remained a SEAL until his retirement at the end of November 2019. Also on November 25, Trump told reporters that Gallagher "was one of the ultimate fighters". Gallagher's case was scheduled for a hearing by the Navy SEAL review board on December 2, 2019.

Gallagher was one of three military personnel accused or convicted of war crimes on whose behalf Trump had intervened to pardon or promote, although Gallagher was neither pardoned nor promoted. Trump told a rally audience days after his intervention, "I stuck up for three great warriors against the deep state."

After the not guilty verdict, the New York Times revisited the case and accessed, using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), investigative reports and also videos of interviews in which six SEALs under the command of Gallagher had separately extensively detailed his ongoing prohibited combat zone behavior, sometimes crying as they recounted his alledged actions. "The guy is freaking evil," Special Operator First (SO1) Class Craig Miller said. "The guy was toxic," said SO1 Joshua Vriens. Special Operator First Class Corey Scott, a platoon medic, had informed investigators, "You could tell he was perfectly O.K. with killing anybody that was moving," but recanting his testimony during the Gallagher trial, for which he was given immunity,

Publicity

60 Minutes In March 2020, David Martin of CBS News interviewed Gallagher, his wife, and his attorney on the CBS program 60 Minutes.

YouTube

He was interviewed in 2020 by former Navy SEAL and current K9 trainer Mike Ritland on YouTube. Gallagher openly discussed topics including his career, the raid upon his home, pre-trial confinement, legal proceedings, acquittal, retirement, and his life and family.

He was also interviewed in 2020 by former Navy SEAL and former CIA Contractor Shawn Ryan on YouTube. In that episode, (Shawn Ryan Show #008) Chief Gallagher explained in depth how teammates under his command at SEAL Team 7 not only accused him of being a war criminal, but relentlessly tried to send him away to life in prison for the alleged stabbing of an Islamic State fighter in Mosul, Iraq.

Book Gallagher and his wife are authors of the book, The Man in the Arena: From Fighting Isis to Fighting for My Freedom published by Ballast Books (2021) .

Television A limited television series adaptation based on the life of Gallagher is in development by Working Title Television and The New York Times with Will Staples to write.

The Line podcast In 2021 Gallagher said on the podcast The Line'' that although he did not stab the ISIS fighter "[the ISIS fighter] was killed by us and that nobody at that time had a problem with it", and that the group performed medical procedures on the prisoner which killed him (including inserting an emergency airway into the ISIS fighter's throat, "just for practice"). Gallagher's attorney during the court-martial, Tim Parlatore, said this was not new information as the prisoner was going to die regardless owing to the injuries sustained and said that Gallagher misspoke as none of the procedures shortened the prisoner's life.