Fox & Friends host Pete Hegseth teased imminent “action” from President Trump in the cases of three former military members accused of war crimes, indicating that the commander in chief is likely to step in sometime before Veterans Day.
“I was able to confirm yesterday from the president of the United States himself, the commander in chief, that action is imminent, especially on the two case of Clint Lorance and Mat Golsteyn. And also restoring the rank of Eddie Gallagher,” he said Monday morning. “So, with Veterans Day coming up, action is imminent at the presidential level. I can confirm that. The president will be speaking to the Army secretary about this because both Lorance and Golsteyn are soldiers in the Army.”
Hegseth went on to say that Trump could choose to pardon the ex-soldiers, commute or change their sentences, or event dismiss their cases altogether.
“It doesn’t have to be a pardon or a commutation. It could be, but pardons and commutations, they imply guilt, that you’ve done something wrong and you need to be forgiven for that,” he said. “The president’s looking at, again — as a commander in chief has a lot of latitude under the uniform code of military justice to dismiss a case or change a sentence, and from what I understand, that is likely what will happen here shortly.”
He added, “I’m told before Veterans Day.”
Last month, Trump announced that the case of former Green Beret Mathew Golsteyn, who is accused of murdering a suspected Taliban bomb-maker, is under White House review. In 2018, he was formally charged with premeditated murder, which carries a maximum penalty of death, and pleaded not guilty in July.
Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher was acquitted in July of murder and other war crimes, but he was convicted of unlawfully taking a picture with the corpse of the ISIS fighter he was accused of killing. His rank was subsequently reduced to a 1st class petty officer from chief petty officer.
Meanwhile, Army 1st Lt. Clint Lorance is serving a 19-year sentence for murder in a military prison after he ordered his men to fire on three unarmed Afghan men on a motorcycle near their patrol in 2012. He then called for the platoon’s gun truck to engage the Afghan motorcyclists using a machine gun, which killed two of them and wounded the third.
