Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, and the Future of American War-Crimes Prosecutions
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Yes.

I am. Are right to do. IT, hey, in the dark listeners, it's metal and barren.

And Parker, yes. Co, hey, guys.

we're back in your feed today because there's spent some recent news that feels really relevant to a lot of the things that we reported on in season three. IT has to do with one of the appointments that incoming president Donald trump has recently announced. And disappointment got the attention of our entire team because I could make IT even harder for war criminals in the the united states to be held accountable.

If you've listen the season three, you know that a reporting found how hard IT is already for people accused of work crimes to be punished in any kind of meaningful way. And IT is most likely about to get a lot harder. We're talking specifically here about the mayan trump is decided he wants to nominate for secretary of defense.

This is a mayan Parker and arable very familiar with. We're talking, of course, about pete hegseth. The reason we're so familiar with pete heg set, it's because hegseth has been one of the most outspoken defenders of americans accused of war crimes in the entire country .

yeah and we've been talking a lot on our team about what his hypothetical confirmation could mean for convicted war criminals and american service members accused of war crimes in the future. In a certain point, we thought we should stop talking about IT just between us and talk about IT with you guys too.

right? So that's we're going to talk about today, Donald trump, pete hegseth and what the reviews on american war k crime prosecutions are. And then what IT might mean for the future are IT Parker.

Let's get into IT. Let's start with pete hegseth. He's trumps pick for secretary of defense. And this is a person that Parker I know you've spent a lot of time thinking about over the past four years.

Yeah I mean peat hegseth is an interesting picky is no experience working in government other than being a veteran. He is forty four he was until last week uh the weekend khost of fox and friends um his from minnesota he went to prince in he worked as an analyst at best sterns and he joined the minnesota a national guard and as an officer he deployed to iraq and to afghanistan and to guantanamo bay um and then there are the more attention grabbing aspects of his biography yeah I mean there's so much .

we can talk about with hag if if we really get into IT that of course has nothing to do with war crimes. They think one of the first things that for a long term at least comes to mind when you think compete, hag said, is this moment that went viral in twenty fifteen, where I was actually watching this again the other day, he was literally throwing at x live on television, on fox.

fox and friends. Cohoes pete heggs save, aiming for accuracy and miss IT.

and the reason this went viral is because he threw the ax kind of too high and too far.

What you didn't see on air is what the ex hit, should we say who drum please?

And he hit a west point drummer who was like drumming in the background, like mid drum out. And IT became this viral moment. So I think a lot of people's first peat hegseth moment was this really out of nowhere, out of context, like silly video, not silly. But the guy who was getting hit by the ax video of someone getting hit, maybe there's that.

maybe not silly to heg either. I think the guys sued him in the end. There's also the controversial tattoos that hegseth has um as a member of the army national guard he was actually pulled from a deployment to washington dc. For bindings inauguration because one of his fellow guardsmen uh reported that he had a tattoo that's a daus, a vault which the guardman said was a White's premises tattoo in a sign of extremism and that IT perhaps made headset an insider threat hegseth has denied that his tattoos have extremist um meaning yeah the hex us resigned from the guard after that .

sort of done with the military you know all of this is interesting because you know if this is a man who the military doesn't trust to provide security for an incoming president inauguration and yet trump is saying that he can literally run the entire defense department. That's something certainly worth paying attention to.

There's also statements that hex that has made that i've got ten a lot of attention about how women should serve rules and combat. And then, of course, there's the allegation that he sexually assaulted a woman in a hotel room in california back in twenty seventeen. This is a claim that I should say he denies, and it's worth noting that he was never charged with any crime, though he does acknowledge that he paid the woman and disclosed amount of money.

So there are all of those issues about heck. But what we really wanted to focus on right now, our hex ist views on war crimes and people accused of war crimes, because hex ih is someone who has directly put himself in middle of these cases. He has lobbied trump in trump's first term on behalf of several men who accused of egregious war crimes.

Some of them convicted of those crimes. He's encouraged trump to dismiss the charges against them, to let them go free, to prevent basically any accountability for some of these crimes committed by american service members. And he has used his position as a cohoes on fox to really popular ze the causes of these men accused of four crimes.

First of all, I can't stand that headline accused of war crimes, that this is these. These are men who went into the most dangerous places on earth with a to defend us and made tough calls on a moments notice. There are not war criminals. There are warriors who have now been accused of certain things that are under review.

Yeah in during trump's first term, hegseth covered alleged were criminals quite extensively. He would invite them on to a show he uh in private reportedly nudged trump to part in several of them in public from the couch at fox and friends. He seemed to talk directly to trump, uh, when he covered the cases of these man and said, you know, these men are being persecuted and they are more heroes .

this president recognized is the injustice of you train someone to go fight and kill the enemy, then they go kill the enemy the way someone doesn't like. And then we put him in jail, or we throw the book at them. And in clinton.

the renters. Here's a guy who is on fox and friends every weekend as a cohoes. He knows trump s this watching. He knows millions of other people are watching to and he's using that platform as a way to bring on people who have been convicted or charged with war crimes and give them, uh, what I think anybody would describe as a pretty sympathetic platform to talk about their case and talk about how why they think theyve been wronged .

yeah and in particular, he's champion a handful of cases. Uh, these cases are very familiar to us because we spent the past four years, uh, constructing an enormous database of alleged war crimes committed by american service member since nine eleven uh, in these cases are all in our database.

We're going to take a quick break here but will be right back.

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So let's talk about these guys that hegseth has really focused on.

The first, there's navy shield chief edi gallagher, uh, there's a Greenberry named Matthew goldin and there's an army luton in clintons who the time was serving a one thousand nine year sentence at ford, eleven worth for murder. These were all people who hegseth advocated should be parked.

And these crimes that these men accused of, and in some cases convicted of, are really seriously. I think that sometimes when we follow, you know, we hear about these cases in the news in the context of hagi t, they're given the crimes themselves are given a passing mention. It'll be something like know goal steam come a charged with.

And then just a couple of words. And I do think it's important for people to really understand what these men, who the future secretary of defense potentially was advocating for, you know, these people that he was supporting, what they were actually accused of and charged with. So let's get into what these people were actually doing during their time in the military that got them in trouble.

yeah. So who are these guys so naive? Seal chief Edgar laker, um was charged with murder, attempted murder, uh, in may twenty seventeen, gallaher allegedly stabbed a teenage captive whose name was college jamal abdulla.

Now abdulla had been fighting with ISIS, but at the time he died, he was detained by navy seals, he was in custody and he was seriously injured. And gallagher own patton's mates who witnessed the incident reported IT up the chain of command ah they ended up telling investigators about other alleged war crimes that gallagher had committed. They said he shot two civilians and old man and a Young girl in separate incidents.

The new york times got this incredible video footage of members of gallagher's own field team clearly completely disturbed by what they'd witnessed when they were overseas, with him telling naive our investigators that gallagher was, quote, freaking evil, and quote, perfectly okay with killing anybody that was moving. Um hegseth called gallagher a war hero. He featured him in some x special Operations guys in a long veteran day TV special that they filmed in an empty restaurant. They all SAT around a table drinking red wine.

Welcome to modern warres of veterans day special on your host. Pete xi, sitting with me, are the best of the best our country has to offer for accomplish special Operators and patriots who put their life on the line to defend our great country.

Pete texas also had Matthew golds in on the show. Ghostland was charged with premeditated murder for allegedly killing a detainee. Uh, the incident came to light after golestan interviewed at the C. I, A for a job, uh, during a polygraph exam.

As part of that interview, he admitted, according to investigative records, that he and other members of his unit had interrogated a man who they suspected of being a taliban bomb maker, but they took him home because they didn't have enough evidence against him to hold him, and instead of releasing him, they killed him, and then they buried him. And then later that night, they went and dug him up and burned his body. What goal stine allegedly admit to is a clear violation of the geneva conventions. It's awar crime. But hegg eth in segments about goal, steen described IT as if IT was like everyday business.

If he committed premeditated murder, then dunk and dead as well, then I did as well. What you think you do war me is all in jail. But what we feel about cases like a gallaher, same with finally.

there's the third person that hegseth has really advocated for is the slut ant clinton.

yes. So clinton was a platon leader in afghanistan, and he was convicted of two counts of murder. Laurentia told his platoon one morning that anyone they saw on motorcycle should be deemed hostel and shot upon site.

And the members of his pluto on heard this. They knew that this was totally outside of the rules of engagement. I think they probably didn't take the order very seriously.

But when they went on patrol later that day and they saw a motorcycle going by, IT had three men on IT in the ance orde them to shoot the men. One of his soldiers shot towards the men, didn't hit him. They stopped.

They got off the motorcycle, and then the rest again said, shoot them, these unarmed men just standing in the road next to the motorcycle. And one of FLorence men followed the order and shot and killed two of the men in the road. And Laurences soldiers were so disturb by this, many of them reported him up the chain of command. Many of them have been really vocal in media about how distressing IT was to be LED by Laurance, who they said had also done other things like shot at civilians, threaten civilians um and laws actually you know in no small part because of his patton's mates or his platoon members, uh you know reporting that they've seen was convicted um and sentenced .

you I mean all three of these men, the military believed had committed workers and a lot of the evidence against them were the members of the military like you say, coming forward and so you know IT was lawyers, IT was commanders. IT was people in their own unit taking that they done something that was indefensible um and you know minal criminal exactly minal and and you know so what hegseth was doing, hex IT was saying these men should have no accountability. These men should not serve .

day in person. These men, men are heroes. exactly.

We train these guide to the best, to the best we want to unleash to go kill them. And then if they make one tiny mistake in the split of battle, or or something goes wrong than a lawyer in the pentagon based on some rules that were written in the air condition officers, as you know, monday morning, quarterback them and say, you know what that deserves twenty or twenty five or thirty years to like?

I mean, basically, if someone views the killing is politically incorrect or not absolutely textbook, then they go away. We're talking about world fighters. You deserve real.

just their heroes. They did exactly what we send them to do. We shouldn't constrain them, they, their fierce fighters and you, we should honoured them. They're being persecuted.

And maybe not surprisingly, hegseth has also made a number of statements that seem to even call into question the idea that there should be any loss of war at all or any rules and engagement. I think he is written about dropping nuclear bombs on japan and world war two and he said talking about the americans quote the one who cares about the question of, you know, whether not that was a war crime um he's also said another point, our boys should not fight by rules written by dignified men in mahajan's rooms eighty years ago and .

and he seems to be referring to the geneva conventions there he yes. And should even follow them these of course, are the the laws, the international laws from post world war two that were meant to ensure that like the the atrocities of the world wars weren't repeated.

right? And you know, it's no small thing to make IT a crime to kill a civilian. It's very different to have that illegal. And so he's calling that whole idea into question, like war is war, and what happens happens. And this is part of this larger belief system.

He really believes more broadly that the military has been taken over by the left and that this decision to prosecute a handful of service members for work crimes is an example of this broader leftest takeover ver. His overall argument is basically that the left has made the military is too soft, too unfocused, too weak, not masculine and too feminine, you know, too focused on what he describes as woke politics, too focused on diversity, too focused on name. Your buzzword, absurd is to .

like accuse the military of being like overly woke. It's an institution that like, almost no one would say that up.

But then again, this is a thing that has gotten a lot of traction on the right. This idea that the little even the military has been infiltrated in this way that like they cannot even spare the military our last defense.

yeah I you and I have both been reading heg set book, which you publish this year. The war on warriors and and IT is full of some incredible quotes that that I think really get you into his mind about what he means by a leftist takeover of the military yeah.

we've pulled up a couple quotes that we think they're pretty representative. So let's just read a few of them. So at one point he says that he wants what he calls a, quote, frontal assault on the military to recapture IT .

from the left. He says, we need clean house of vogue generals.

He says, quote, so called diversity is not our strength. IT is our weakness.

Uh, our troops are fighters, not gender studies. Freshman.

while amErica may run on duncan, our military runs on masculinity. Properly channelled. It's not toxic at all. It's necessary just because the rest of our culture has gone soft, and a feminine and apologetic doesn't mean our military can afford to.

AmErica is still full of Young, strong alpha males, love their country and wanted defend their family. But those Young males see a military that doesn't want to recruit them. So you get what the hard left really wants, soft men and a weak military, neuter at home and neutered abroad.

Yeah I mean, I think that that really does give you a sense of how his views on war crimes are part of this much larger philosophy. And it's remains to be seen like what this actually would look like. I mean, what does that look like to take this world view and put IT at the top of the defense department?

Mean, that's like my question. Like what is this what does this mean? Like one thing to be ready to be on fox and friends as the weekend cohoes saying this stuff are writing a book about IT, it's a whole different thing to be in charge of more than a million active duty service members with this phone. Sophy.

I think the very least that means that he would have the commander and chiefs year all of the time, and and he sort of already did in his role as a guy on TV. But now I would be his job and IT would be trumps job to to listen exactly.

I should say we did we out to hex us for comment, but we haven't heard back and we also reached out to the trump transition team, but we haven't gotten a comment from them. All right? We're going, na, take a quick break here, but will be right back.

There is, of course, a lot of news that's happening very quickly around the incoming trump s administration in the whole transition. And it's unclear if pete hegseth is really going to end up secretary of defense. You know, he would need to either be confirmed by the senate, or there's spent some suggestion that trump could use a recess APP pointless to get him in without senate confirmation.

And the other thing we should say is that all of this is changing rapidly. That seems that almost every passing hour at this point, even as we were recording this episode, we got the news that trumps pick for attorney general matt gates, had just dropped out. So we're not sure of hegseth will make IT through.

But regardless of whether hegseth does or not, trump is the next present. Trump is going to be the commander in chief. And trump himself has, of course, spent incredibly clear about how he used war crimes and americans accused of them.

Some of these soldiers are people that have fought hard, long. You know, we teach him how to be great fighters. And then when they fight, sometimes they get really treated very unfairly yeah I mean.

basically everything we've talked about with hegseth is the same world view that that trump shares trump when heggs us is advocating on behalf of gallagher and goldin and the service members being charged with four crimes, trump tweeting at pete hegg eth about them a trump eat in twenty twenty, we train our boys to be killing machines, then prosecute them when they kill.

right? And he's also like aceh, he's called into question, should we even have geneva conventions? Although even a good idea, like in twenty sixteen, trump s at a town hall and he said, quote, the problem is we have the geneva conventions, all sorts of rules and regulations, so the soldiers are afraid to fight. We came out water board, but they can chop off heads. And then he said, I think we've got to make some changes, some adjustments.

Yeah, I mean, in trump's first term, he intervened in several work crime cases. He pardoned gholston. He parkin Lance. He pardoned another army officer who he haven't talked about here.

A I, me, Michael bahn na, bahn na had been convicted of taking a detainee who he was supposed to release to a remote location and shooting him dead. And then the man's body was burned with an insane I grenade. And then trump h.

intervened. In gallagher's case, he got gallagher released from the big. While he waited for trial, he reversed a demotion that gallagher was sentenced to. Uh, he treated congratulations at gallagher after he was acquitted of murder.

I mean, all and at every turn that he's doing these things. What he's saying is I disagree. Trump is saying I disagree with the military.

I disagree with your decision to to charges person. I disagree with the service members who SAT on a jury and convicted this person. I disagree with that decision.

And IT gets to this larger issue of trumps. I mean, I guess we could say a complicated relationship with the military like on on the one hand, trump clearly loves the pantry of the military. He loves military parade.

He loves the idea. Tough talking generals, you know, often thinks in cinematic ways. He talks about this, know this person strayed out of central casting. He has the idea of a warrior like a violent fighter that he clearly admires um and so all of that you know very interprets in the military for those types of things.

On the other hand, he has criticized the military and gone so far in those criticisms that I think it's safe to say that they go far beyond what, at least in our lifetimes, we've seen president or or major party presidential candidate do. I mean, there's all kinds of things that trump s said that are sort of third rails, like criticizing four star generals or criticizing people that everyone rather you like. These people are not, agrees, our war heroes like what trump said about john mccain.

yeah. I mean, he called john mccain n. He said, john mccain is not a war hero. He said, because he was captured. He said, I like people who weren't captured.

And then you ve got what john Kelly said. Kelly, of course, was trumps chief of staff for some time, and he has claimed that trump has talked to him about men who were injured in combat, american service members or health P. O, W.

And that trump called them, quote, losers and suckers. Trump denies us. And then you wrap in all of trumps other talk, very similar to what we are talking about with heg set talking about woke e generals the need to clean house, he floated the idea of what he's calling a warrior board.

This would be something that made up of retired military officials who could basically recommend which generals should be urged for bad leadership. This is like the way the wall generals will be eradicated from the military. He's talked about how he believes that D. I, diversity, equity and inclusion has infiltrated the military in a way that has been destructive. He basically takes all of his larger cultural grievances that he might have about any institution and says, like, yes, i'm applying this also to the military.

the biggest institution of all.

right? And so let me think about trumps actions on war crimes. This is how we're trying to we're thinking about all of these things and we're trying to think about what is he actually going to do as commander in chief. Um I mean, I think we see with this first administration that IT is a false iron to try to predict on a policy level what is actually going to happen in the trump administration. I think that's fair to say, but I do think that they're certain things that we're going be watching for getting.

We could say that yeah I mean, first off, will he part in more convicted war criminals or people charged with war crimes.

right? You're really push for, on a broader level, changes to the laws of war, changes to the rules of engagement, or even intervene in the military justice system to try to tweak things, procedural or otherwise, to make IT easier for people that are accused of war crimes to defend themselves.

And if he does those things, you know, how will people in the military react to? The military is not a mono. If, uh, we know there are focus in the military that have disagreed with many of trumps decisions already, what will they think of what comes next?

And of course, the question of whether people in the military will resist any of this. I mean, we saw that in trumps first term that there were people who have now written best selling books about IT who were inside the government, at least according to them, trying to stop some of what trump wanted to do. So IT was, at the case, the truck just got to do everything that he wanted to.

Much to translate tion, of course, with trump. There's always this question of, if this is all just on sam level blister or just talk that ignites the passion of the base that is hard to predict. It's hard to predict really in any presidency because the regardless of what a president comes in saying that they want to do and or believe that they want to do, a lot of times presents es aren't dictated by those agenda items that you come in with. They're dictated by what happens in world events or national events. I mean, think about like biden with the war in gaza, that is absolutely not unassuming, how he came into his administration thinking he would be spending more than a year .

of his time yeah, we just we don't know what will happen h during trumps presidency, but we will definitely be watching.

Absolutely are right Parker. Well, things we're talking to me about all this.

Thanks for having me. We will see what happens next.

And as always, if you have story tips or ideas for what we should cover next, you can email them to us at in the dark at new yorker dot com. And if you're interested more in what Parker are talking about with this database we've been referring to of possible war crimes that we created for the new yorker, you can find that database at new yorker dot com slash season three.

From P R X.