Lawyer for Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher: Long Past Due for the Navy to Come to Grips with the Truth

Tim Parlatore, lawyer for retired Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher, responded to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s comment that the Navy was “looking into” his client’s recent remarks in an interview indicating his team meant to kill a wounded 17-year-old ISIS fighter in Iraq.

“It is long past due for the Navy to come to grips with the truth about what happened on that day. I hope that they will make a good faith effort here instead of seeking vengeance or trying to whitewash their own misconduct. To the extent that they want the truth, we stand by to assist,” Parlatore said in a statement to Breitbart News.

“Also, DOD has had this information for months, as they were reviewing Eddie’s book as part of their pre-publication review. [Special Operations Command] and [United States Naval Special Warfare Command] both reviewed it extensively, so none of this is news to them. Moreover, Navy prosecutors knew this information over two years before the trial even began,” he said.

“DOD has had the book since September 10, 2020 and that in the book Eddie clearly started that this terrorist wasn’t going to make it and anything further they did to save him would just be good practice,” he added.

Austin, at a Thursday press conference, said in response to a question about Gallagher’s remarks, “I know the Navy is looking into that issue.”

Gallagher was tried in 2019 for premeditated murder for the ISIS fighter’s death, but was found not guilty and charged with one count of taking a photo of the corpse. The trial captivated the nation’s attention and Gallagher found support from former President Donald Trump. Democrats claimed Gallagher was a “war criminal.”

Gallagher, whose book is set to be released next month, gave a recent interview on the podcast The Line, where he said his SEAL team intended to conduct medical procedures on the mortally-wounded ISIS fighter until he died, and that some members of his team tried to pin the death on him.

“We killed that guy,” Gallagher reportedly said. “Our intention was to kill him. Everybody was on board.”

He added, “I didn’t stab that dude. That dude died from all the medical treatments that were done – and there was plenty of medical treatments that were done to him.”

Parlatore said in a brief interview with Breitbart News that there is nothing new in Gallagher’s remarks that was not brought up during the trial or that will be discussed in Gallagher’s forthcoming book.

 

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