Secretary of the Navy takes a blowtorch to Donald Trump
Donald Trump fired his own handpicked Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer this weekend, because Spencer wasn’t corrupt, and Trump needed someone in the position who was willing to do his corrupt bidding. This is a common theme when it comes to Trump’s firings (see Marie Yovanovitch). The thing is, Trump never does seem to learn that these things tend to blow up in his face.
Trump insisted on intervening on behalf of convicted war criminal Eddie Gallagher, after the U.S. military had already handled the matter internally. It wasn’t that Trump thought the Gallagher matter had been mishandled; it’s that Gallagher’s lawyer happens to work for the Trump Organization. Navy Secretary Richard Spencer wasn’t willing to roll over and let Trump corruptly meddle in the military’s business, so Trump fired him.
Richard Spencer has responded to being fired by writing a scathing op-ed that’s been published in the Washington Post. He laid out the specifics of Trump’s inappropriate meddling, and then asserted that Trump “has very little understanding of what it means to be in the military, to fight ethically or to be governed by a uniform set of rules and practices.”
Spencer is correct on all counts. This is a guy who joined the Marine Corps four decades ago, somewhere around the time Donald Trump was faking bone spurs in order to dodge the draft. Trump has no respect for the military, so he has no respect for how military justice is supposed to work. For that matter, Trump has no understanding of right or wrong in general. You can read Spencer’ op-ed here.
