The NYT story published this morning for the first time lends credence to the prosecution’s story—that members of Gallagher’s team were frightened and hesitant but came forward to Navy investigators as their pleas to the chain of command went unanswered. According to the paper, the men described seeing Gallagher stab the wounded captive with a hunting knife and “painted a picture of a platoon driven to despair by a chief who seemed to care primarily about racking up kills. They described how their chief targeted women and children and boasted that ‘burqas were flying.’”

“The guy is freaking evil,” Special Operator Miller told investigators. “The guy was toxic,” Special Operator First Class Joshua Vriens, a sniper, said in a separate interview. “You could tell he was perfectly O.K. with killing anybody that was moving,” Special Operator First Class Corey Scott, a medic in the platoon, told the investigators.

Such dire descriptions of Chief Gallagher, who had eight combat deployments and sometimes went by the nickname Blade, are in marked contrast to Mr. Trump’s portrayal of him at a recent political rally in Florida as one of “our great fighters.”

Obviously they knew what they were doing—not so different from the sailors in the 1954 Hollywood film, The Caine Mutiny—would put their own careers in peril. But hundreds of texts that were used in the trove of evidence indicate the men did not coordinate their stories, but commiserated in a sort of support system during the trial and after they were re-assigned and scattered.

“This stuff is frustrating to read and makes it seem like Eddie will possibly get away with murder (literally),” Special Operator First Class Dylan Dille texted the group. “Let’s not forget there are 7-12 of us in here who had the balls to tell the truth about what Eddie has done.”

He said he thought the case against Chief Gallagher was strong despite the procedural setbacks. “I am also convinced that we are gonna answer to a higher power someday, and everything happens for a reason,” wrote Special Operator Dille, who has since left the Navy. “Not compromising our integrity and keeping right on our side is all we can do.”

Because of the code that no one informs on a fellow SEAL, the men who testified against Gallagher have been publicly excoriated, particularly by Gallagher and his wife Andrea, who have been given a golden platform on Fox News for the last year to make their case of innocence. This has obviously affected Trump, who sided with Gallagher and has made him a hero. And everyone else? Traitors.

“The teams are now divided over this, like I’ve never seen happen before,” Rick Haas, a retired command master chief who served in the SEALs for 30 years, said in the NYT piece…

Moreover, Trump is in no position to tell the rest of America who is a “hero”and who is a “traitor” based on his own venal political agenda. These men are being used as props, and it’s dangerous. Yes, there is a divide—but it’s over right and wrong, not Red and Blue.

Be seeing you

Killing anything that moves