Did they order the code red?
Donald Trump intervened in three military justice cases on Friday, issuing pardons in at least two of them.
Some Pentagon officials have expressed concerns that the president’s actions will undermine the military justice system, according to the Washington Post. From the report:
The service members involved were notified by Trump over the phone, said the U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue. Army Maj. Mathew L. Golsteyn, who faced a murder trial scheduled to begin next year, took the phone call and was informed he would receive a full pardon, said his lawyer, Phillip Stackhouse.
In additon to Golsteyn, the other cases involve former Special Warfare Operator Chief Edward Gallagher, a Navy SEAL convicted of posing with the corpse of an Islamic State militant and former Army 1st Lt. Clint Lorance, who was convicted of second-degree murder in 2013 for ordering his soldiers to open fire on three men in Afghanistan.
Golsteyn had gone from being decorated with a Silver Star for his service in Afghanistan to facing years of investigation and a court-martial in the 2010 death of a suspected bomb maker in Afghanistan, according to the Washington Post.
That’s the “tough guy” right there – one who bullies only people weaker than he is, and who pardons soldiers accused of war crimes.
Yes, that kid at school who sucks up to the bullies to avoid being their target and then uses them to vicariously target other people to make himself feel powerful. Or to put it another way, Trump’s foreign and domestic policy.