‘You could tell he was perfectly OK with killing anybody that was moving’
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.
Special Operator 1st Class Corey Scott, a medic in the platoon, told the investigators: “You could tell he was perfectly OK with killing anybody that was moving.” Platoon members said they saw Gallagher shoot civilians and fatally stab a wounded captive with a hunting knife. Gallagher was acquitted by a military jury in July of all but a single relatively minor charge and was cleared of all punishment in November by Trump.
Miller said that when the platoon commander, Lt. Jacob Portier, told the SEALs to gather over the corpse for photos, he did not feel he could refuse. The photos, included in the evidence obtained by The Times, show Gallagher, surrounded by other SEALs, clutching the dead captive’s hair; in one photo, he holds a custom-made hunting knife.Gallagher’s lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, said the video interviews were rife with inconsistencies and falsehoods that created “a clear road map to the acquittal.
The video interviews and private group text conversations obtained by The Times do not reveal any coordinated deception among the SEALs in the chief’s platoon. Instead, they show men who were hesitant to come forward but who urged one another to resist outside pressure and threats of violence, and to be honest.
“In a perfect world, there would be no risk, but that is not where we are,” Rick Haas, a retired command master chief who served in the SEALs for 30 years, said in an interview with The Times. “The teams are now divided over this like I’ve never seen happen before.” Vriens told investigators he had wanted to confront the chief in Iraq but had worried that if he did, he would be cut from missions and no longer be present to protect other SEALs from the chief. As he spoke, he struggled to keep his composure.
He said he thought the case against 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 Dille, who has since left the Navy. “Not compromising our integrity and keeping right on our side is all we can do.”
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