After nearly two years of legal battles, Eddie Gallagher will retire with his rank and Navy SEAL Trident intact, according to the Navy.
“The Navy has canceled the naval special warfare designation review board for [Special Operations Chief] Edward R. Gallagher,” Cdr. Clay Doss, a Navy spokesman, told the Washington Examiner in a statement. “He will retire from active duty. We will not provide additional details due to privacy concerns.”
Doss did not offer a retirement date, but Gallagher’s lawyer, Tim Parlatore, told the Washington Examiner he hopes the process will be completed by Nov. 30.
The statement confirmed what Secretary of Defense Mark Esper told reporters Monday morning when he said the Gallagher case had dragged on excessively.
“I want the SEALs and the Navy to move beyond this now and get fully focused on their war-fighting mission, and I also want them focused on resetting their professional standards, ethics, and conduct,” Esper said.
Gallagher, 40, was charged with various war crimes stemming from a 2017 deployment to Iraq, during which he was accused of murdering an injured ISIS fighter. He was found not guilty of most of the crimes in July but was convicted of taking a picture with the corpse of the fighter he was accused of killing. That conviction would have knocked him down in rank had President Trump not intervened. Rear Adm. Collin Green, who commands the SEAL community, announced the review last week, shortly after Trump restored Gallagher’s rank. Had the board convened, Gallagher’s supporters believe he likely would have lost his SEAL trident — a punishment usually reserved for the most serious offenders.
Gallagher filed an inspector general complaint against Green last week, accusing the admiral of conspiring to pull his Trident and flouting Trump’s orders. That case is likely to remain open after Gallagher retires.
