Former Navy Secretary Richard Spencer spared no ire for Donald Trump in his “resignation” letter, which he claims is less of a resignation letter and more of an acknowledgement of his firing, USA Today reports.
Over the weekend, Spencer was either asked to resign or was fired, depending on your point of view, over his not seeing eye-to-eye with Defense Secretary Mark Esper in regards to President Trump’s involvement in naval discipline of SEAL Edward Gallagher.
As previously reported by The Inquisitr , Gallagher was demoted one rank after being convicted of posing with the corpse of a fallen terrorist. In addition to the demotion in rank, the Navy appears to have been making moves to expel him from the SEALs, the elite special-forces unit of which Gallagher was a part.
Last Thursday, Trump tweeted that the Navy “will NOT be taking away Warfighter and Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher’s Trident Pin,” where the “Trident Pin” refers to the regalia that identifies him as a Navy SEAL. In other words, Trump was tweeting that he wouldn’t allow the Navy to remove Gallagher from the SEALs, as they had wanted to do.
Whether or not Trump’s tweet was a direct order as Commander-in-Chief, or was simply his ruminating about the situation publicly, was unclear, at least to Spencer, who declined to act on it.
Defense Secretary Esper then asked for Spencer’s resignation.
In his resignation letter, Spencer admitted that he felt the document was less of a resignation letter than an acknowledgement of his firing.
“I hereby acknowledge my termination,” he said.
He then went on to take the president to task for, as Spencer sees it, undermining internal military discipline by interfering in the cases of service members who have committed war crimes.
“The rule of law is what sets us apart from our adversaries. Good order and discipline is what has enabled our victory against foreign tyranny time and again…Unfortunately, it has become apparent that in this respect, I no longer share the same understanding with the Commander in Chief,” he wrote.
He then went on to say that he could not, in good conscience, obey an order that “violates the sacred oath I took.”
As for Gallagher, it seems as if Trump’s tweet stating that he wouldn’t be removed from the SEALs isn’t the final word on the matter. As The Inquisitr reported on Sunday, a naval official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the Trump administration promised not to interfere in the Navy’s own internal discipline against Gallagher.
