Navy SEALs Paint Disturbing Picture of Eddie Gallagher
HOWELL: Welcome back to viewers here in the United States and around the world. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM live from Atlanta. I'm George Howell with headlines we're following at this hour.</s>HOWELL: There's new controversy surrounding the U.S. Navy SEAL whose court-ordered punishment was reversed by President Trump. "The New York Times" has obtained video of his former platoon members describing him in grim terms to investigators. Our Barbara Starr has this disturbing report.</s>BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Members of SEAL Team 7 Alpha platoon broke their own code of silence in 2018 with their opinions about retired Special Operations chief Eddie Gallagher and some making accusations that the elite SEAL committed murder and potential war crimes.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The guy got crazier and crazier.</s>STARR (voice-over): These are portions of recorded Navy SEAL interviews published by "The New York Times," where team members tell investigators their views on the platoon leader.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The guy was toxic. It's</s>STARR (voice-over): Gallagher was acquitted of premeditated murder when a key prosecution witness changed his story and testified under immunity that he caused the prisoner's death, not Gallagher.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you suffocate him?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: By holding my thumb over his ET tube until he stopped breathing.</s>STARR (voice-over): Scott described the killing as an act of mercy because he was concerned the boy, a prisoner of Iraqi forces, would be tortured by them. Gallagher was convicted on a charge of taking a photo with a dead ISIS fighter and was then demoted in rank, a decision President Trump reversed, allowing the SEAL to retire with honor, even after Pentagon leaders urged the president not to interfere. Speaking through his attorney, Gallagher told CNN, "My first reaction to seeing the videos was surprise and disgust that they would make up blatant lies about me. But I quickly realized that they were scared that the truth would come out of how cowardly they acted on deployment." His attorney says the tapes were, quote, "a road map to acquittal" because they showed there were conflicting stories about allegations of Gallagher killing civilians and other misconduct.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Really, you're only seeing one very small slice of the story in a way that's not reflective of what the ultimate result was.</s>STARR (voice-over): President Trump's determination to reverse the military's punishment of Gallagher against the advice of top Pentagon officials was so controversial, Navy Secretary Richard Spencer was ousted. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff insists that discipline and adherence to the laws of war will not suffer.</s>GEN. MARK MILLEY, USJC CHAIRMAN: We do maintain and we will maintain good order and discipline. We will not turn into a gang of raping, burning and pillaging.</s>STARR (voice-over): But some say it's all led to festering bad feelings.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So it's this kind of divisiveness that the president's actions have introduced into the SEAL community I think that are the most damaging and will have long-term effects.</s>STARR (voice-over): Gallagher met with Trump over the holidays at Mar-a-Lago and it's possible he will campaign for Trump if asked, those who know him say -- Barbara Starr, CNN, the Pentagon.</s>HOWELL: After a setback, China is back in space. Plus, Britain will soon have more knights and dames. Who gets the top honors next year.