A member of the Armed Services Committee is calling on Secretary Defense Mark Esper to fire acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly for a speech he gave to sailors aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt.
Rep. Elaine Luria demanded Modly’s removal via Twitter on Monday, hours after audio of him admonishing the USS Theodore Roosevelt’s former commander Capt. Brett Crozier was released. Crozier was relieved of his command after a letter expressing his concerns about a coronavirus outbreak on the ship was published in the media.
“I have called on @EsperDoD to immediately fire Acting @SECNAV. If you want to know why, listen to this,” the Virginia Democrat, who is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and a Navy veteran, tweeted on Monday, along with audio from Modly’s controversial speech.
In the speech, Modly accused Crozier of betrayal and acknowledged that some sailors might be upset with him because of the captain’s removal.
“I’m gonna tell you something, all of you: There is never a situation where you should consider the media a part of your chain of command,” Modly said. “Because the media has an agenda, and the agenda that they have depends on which side of the political aisle they sit, and I’m sorry that’s the way the country is now, but it’s the truth. And so they use it to divide us and use it to embarrass the Navy. They use it to embarrass you.”
“If he didn’t think, in my opinion, that this information wasn’t going to get out into the public, in this day and information age that we live in, then he was either … too naive or too stupid to be a commanding officer of a ship like this,” the acting secretary said. “The alternative is that he did this on purpose.”
According to Navy officials, Crozier’s letter contained “sensitive” information.
“The letter was sent over not-secure, unclassified email even though the ship possesses some of the most sophisticated equipment in the fleet,” Modly said Thursday. “It wasn’t just sent up the chain of command, it was copied to a broad array of other people.”
In the letter, Crozier pleaded for more help containing COVID-19 virus infections on his ship. The USS Theodore Roosevelt now has at least 130 cases on aboard, with Crozier also recently testing positive for the virus.
Videos shared on social media of Crozier’s departure showed hundreds of sailors on the ship, cheering as he disembarked. A former commander of the USS Theodore Roosevelt has also criticized the decision to remove Crozier from his post.
“As a former Commanding Officer of USS Theodore Roosevelt, I was troubled to see that Captain Crozier has been relieved of command,” retired Adm. Charles “Steve” Abbot told the Washington Examiner. “The problem on TR will occur on other ships. Hopefully, in smaller numbers, but the Navy leadership needs to have its plan and fleetwide guidance in place for dealing with the problem promptly.”
