Trump Urges Navy Not to ‘Destroy’ Captain Who Wrote Coronavirus Letter; Trump Says He Would Not Have Asked Navy Secretary to Resign

By Washington Examiner. President Trump does not want to see the career of Navy Capt. Brett Crozier “destroyed” because of his decision to speak out about the coronavirus aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt.

During a press conference on Monday, Trump said that he may “get involved” in the Navy’s handling of Crozier’s case after he was fired from his role as commander of the ship. In a series of questions about Crozier’s situation, Trump said he believes the captain made a mistake by speaking to the press rather than following the military chain of command but noted that he doesn’t want the mistake to ruin Crozier’s career.

“He’s the captain of a ship. He’s a very important person of a very expensive ship, a nuclear-powered ship. He shouldn’t be writing letters like that. But it happens. Sometimes I’ll write a letter that I’ll say ‘I wish I didn’t send it.’ Not too often, but it happens,” he said.

Trump later added, “I am going to look into it, and I’m going to see maybe we can do something because I’m not looking to destroy a person’s life, who’s had an otherwise stellar career, as I understand it. I looked at his file just now because I’ve been seeing what’s going on. If we can save a person’s career — I don’t mind going after a person when they did something wrong, but this was a mistake.” (Read more from “Trump Urges Navy Not to ‘Destroy’ Captain Who Wrote Coronavirus Letter” HERE)

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Trump Says He Would Not Have Asked Navy Secretary to Resign

By New York Post. President Trump said Tuesday that acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly didn’t have to resign for giving a profane speech justifying his firing of USS Theodore Roosevelt commander Capt. Brett Crozier, but Trump said he hopes it will end the controversy.

Crozier warned last week that COVID-19 was spreading among his 5,000-man crew. Modly removed him from command, telling his former crew he was “too naive or too stupid” if he believed the email would not leak.

“The whole thing was very unfortunate,” Trump said at a press conference Tuesday night.

“The captain should not have written a letter, he didn’t have to be Ernest Hemingway. He made a mistake but he had a bad day,” Trump said.

He added on Modly’s resignation: “I had heard he did because he didn’t want to cause any disturbance for our country… because he wouldn’t have had to resign, I would not have asked him. I don’t know him. I didn’t speak to him, but he did that I think just to end that problem. And I think in really many ways that was a very unselfish thing for him to do.”

Trump offered Monday to mediate between Modly and Crozier. On Tuesday, Modly resigned after meeting with Defense Secretary Mark Esper, according to reports. (Read more from “Trump Says He Would Not Have Asked Navy Secretary to Resign” HERE)

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