Trump pardons 2 ex-military officers, promotes Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher
By Laura Italiano
November 15, 2019 | 9:38pm | Updated

President Donald Trump on Friday issued full pardons to two former military officers implicated in improper killings.

The pardon of former Green Beret Maj. Mathew Golsteyn — who is accused of murdering a suspected bomb-maker while deployed in Afghanistan — circumvents a court martial that had been scheduled for February at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Golsteyn has argued that the Afghan was a legal target because of his behavior at the time of the shooting.

Trump has tweeted in the past that Golsteyn is a “US Military hero” who could face the death penalty “from our own government.”

Trump also issued a full pardon for Army 1st Lt. Clint Lorance, who’d been found guilty of second-degree murder after nine members of his platoon testified he ordered soldiers to open fire on three men, also in Afghanistan.

In the same statement issued by the White House Friday, Trump ordered a promotion for Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Edward R. Gallagher.

Gallagher had been bumped down to a lower pay grade after he was convicted in July of posing for a photograph with the corpse of an ISIS fighter while on deployment in Iraq in 2017 — but cleared of murder charges stemming from the fighter’s fatal stabbing.

https://nypost.com/2019/11/15/trump-pard...ddie-gallagher/


Statement:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-sta...s-secretary-97/