[door opens] - Just right here? - Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Which team are you assigned to right now? - Team 7. - SEAL Team 7. - I’m at SEAL Team 7. <i>PHILIPPS: The Navy SEALS</i> <i>are probably the most elite commandos in the military.</i> - Why do you think you’re here, first of all? What have you heard that this is about? - The prisoner issue. - Okay. <i>PHILIPPS: Reporting on the SEALS is extremely tough.</i> - So I’m gonna have you tell me everything you know first. - Okay, um, I brought my notes just because... <i>PHILIPPS: There’s a culture of being a silent professional.</i> <i>You don’t talk about what you do.</i> - I walked over there to check it out, and somebody told me, was like, “Hey, grab your med bag.” - Did you actually see it happen? - Yeah, I saw it happen. <i>PHILIPPS: In the summer of 2019,</i> <i>we get leaked a trove of Navy materials</i> <i>that includes thousands of documents...</i> <i>helmet cam footage, photos, text messages,</i> <i>and all these confidential interviews with the SEALS,</i> <i>stuff that no one has ever seen before.</i> - I kind of, like, heard more rumors and stuff like that of Eddie, like, targeting civilians. - I saw Eddie take a shot at probably a 12-year-old kid. - What was Eddie’s offic— I know he’s a chief, but what was his official position? - He was the platoon chief. - Okay. <i>PHILIPPS: This massive leak gives us insight</i> into a very secretive brotherhood of commandos that otherwise we would never get to see. - The guy got crazier and crazier. - You could tell he was perfectly okay with killing anybody. - I see Eddie leaning over him with the knife. - This is a case where some SEALS who are not supposed to take things outside the family turned in their own chief. - The guy was toxic. - You can’t let this continue. - It’s fucked up. Like... <i>PHILIPPS: You know, they’re these guys</i> <i>who believe in doing good and had the courage to act.</i> It’s just that things didn’t turn out how they thought. <i>DILLE: There are civilians everywhere.</i> <i>- Shit, we have a problem. - He’s a psychopath.</i> <i>- Hey!</i> - We’re gonna protect our war fighters. <i>PERSON: I’m overjoyed that he stepped in again.</i> - You have to have good order and discipline. <i>[suspenseful music]</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>SCOTT: That’s frickin’ evil, man.</i> <i>[somber music]</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> [indistinct conversation] - Philipps interview. Take one. Eddie Gallagher was kind of a legend in the SEALs. <i>He was trained as a medic, trained as a sniper,</i> <i>trained as a breacher,</i> <i>which is somebody who busts down walls</i> <i>and blows open doors.</i> <i>He had been named Sailor of the Year,</i> <i>had a chest full of medals.</i> <i>Known as a badass, he was not afraid of the fight</i> <i>and he was gonna take it to the enemy.</i> <i>So when he was named to take over</i> <i>Alpha Platoon SEAL Team 7,</i> everybody in the platoon was excited. - Eddie was, like, a very respected chief. - Great leader, great reputation, everyone knows him, like, a guy you could fall back on. - He’s a legend, so we go into this platoon, and I—I loved him like he was my mentor. <i>[suspenseful music]</i> <i>PHILIPPS: They were picked as the top platoon in their team,</i> <i>and they were sent to the toughest mission</i> <i>in Mosul, Iraq.</i> But once they got there, things started getting weird. <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>Edward Gallagher told the platoon</i> <i>that deployment to Mosul was a golden egg</i> <i>because you could get as much combat as you wanted,</i> and what Edward Gallagher wanted was to go and get some. <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>But then, as they spend more time in Iraq,</i> <i>Eddie started doing other things</i> <i>that not only started to make them wonder</i> <i>about his abilities as a leader,</i> <i>but also his values as a person.</i> <i>VRIENS: We were just doing all this stupid shit</i> that goes against everything we learned in training. - It kind of turned into the platoon being Eddie’s personal, like, sniper escort to get him from place to place so he could try to do the sniper ops. - He kept talking about how cool it’d be to get a Purple Heart. <i>The shittier the situation got,</i> <i>the higher his award would be.</i> <i>He’s just, like, medal-chasing.</i> <i>VILLANUEVA: He would just be shooting</i> <i>when nobody else would see anything to shoot</i> <i>and say he was getting kills.</i> <i>He wasn’t, like, the same person anymore.</i> <i>INTERVIEWER: What’d you feel like his priority was</i> when he was there? - War stories at the end. <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>PHILIPPS: Gallagher would fire multiple times</i> <i>more than them.</i> You know, they might get off one shot or two shots a day, if that, <i>and he’d fire 20 shots.</i> <i>He would come back to the house at the end of the day</i> talking about how many people he’d killed. [distant gunfire] <i>MILLER: Eddie came up to me after an operation</i> and said that he had killed four women a day. And I said, “Why the fuck did you do that?” And he said, “Well, I shot warning shots.” - And his response to Craig was, “Well, I gave them warning shots first.” I have never witnessed Eddie give a warning shot. - I think he just wants to kill anybody he can. <i>PHILIPPS: This stuff really starts to trouble them.</i> Their chief appears to be shooting people who there’s no reason he should shoot. INTERVIEWER: Any actions you remember the platoon taking to try and— to stop it from happening, whether talking to Eddie, talking to someone else, doing anything at all? - There were multiple instances where we brought Eddie in to talk to him, <i>and he was would just kind of</i> <i>turn the conversation his way,</i> <i>then it came down to, like, “Oh, I’m the chief.</i> <i>I do what I want.”</i> <i>At some point towards the end of the deployment,</i> <i>other snipers would shoot</i> <i>so they would run away and hide</i> <i>before Eddie would engage them.</i> - They were trying to protect the civilian populous from Eddie. INTERVIEWER: Did Eddie ever say anything to you guys about doing that? - He thought we were missing. - Okay. - And he would be like, “You fucking missed!” [chuckles] <i>PHILIPPS: It got so bizarre to them.</i> Try and imagine you’re deployed to Iraq, and you get up every day, and you know that your job is going to be to go out to the war zone where there’s legitimate people who your mission is to kill, but you’re not gonna do that because you’re going to be spending much of your time protecting innocent civilians from your own platoon leader. <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>So step by step,</i> <i>these guys are starting to have real questions about him.</i> And then the stabbing happens. <i>PHILIPPS: Everyone that I’ve talked to in the platoon</i> <i>said that things were pretty normal on May 6th, 2017.</i> <i>That morning they used signals equipment</i> <i>to figure out that ISIS had some sort of</i> <i>small command post in a farm house.</i> <i>They call in air support,</i> and a helicopter sends a missile down into this house. <i>They hit it directly, killing several ISIS members.</i> <i>In fact, there was only one who survived,</i> and within minutes, the Iraqi forces on the ground captured this guy. He was still alive and conscious, and they were going to bring him in. [indistinct conversation] <i>An “ISIS fighter” sort of conjures up an image</i> <i>of a big bad guy, but this guy is a pretty pathetic sight.</i> [indistinct conversation] <i>He’s clearly a teenager,</i> <i>so skinny that—that the watch he’s wearing,</i> <i>when they pick him up,</i> <i>slides all the way up to his shoulder.</i> - [groans] <i>- The media was there.</i> <i>There’s also a number of people around.</i> <i>PHILIPPS: At the time that this missile hits,</i> Edward Gallagher is in an armored gun truck, pretty close to the frontline. - Eddie came over the radio and specifically said, “Don’t touch him. I got him.” - “Nobody touch him. He’s all mine.” <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>PHILIPPS: He literally drove miles</i> <i>across fields and gunfire to get back to this.</i> [indistinct conversation] <i>VILLANUEVA: So I came over.</i> <i>The kid had a wound on his leg.</i> <i>VILLANUEVA: He was unconscious.</i> <i>He looked like he was blown up, concussed.</i> Like, the kid wasn’t barely even moving. - He didn’t look like he was doing very well. <i>INTERVIEWER: So he’s still alive?</i> <i>SCOTT: Yeah, he was still alive.</i> <i>He was sedated.</i> <i>INTERVIEWER: At that point, they weren’t, like—</i> - At that point in time, like, he probably wasn’t gonna die. INTERVIEWER: Okay. <i>PHILIPPS: Gallagher comes on the scene with his medic bag</i> <i>and pushes the kid down on the ground</i> <i>while he checks him for wounds.</i> - [yells] <i>PHILIPPS: And right then,</i> <i>you can see a hand reach up and turn off the helmet cam.</i> <i>INTERVIEWER: So what did you actually see Gallagher do?</i> - All of a sudden, Eddie just starts stabbing the dude. - I see Eddie laying over him with the knife, sticking it in his neck. INTERVIEW: Did Eddie say anything when he did this, or did he just literally pull out a knife and then start stabbing him? - He just pulled out a knife and started stabbing him. - How close do you think you were when you saw Gallagher stab him? - Me, body, Gallagher. - One time, multiple times? - It was probably two or three times. - Do you remember where in his neck he stabbed him? Did he stab him on the sides? - It was on the back. - Like, stab it, and like, turn it? I mean... - Like, it was just, like, a stab about right here, just in a few times. <i>[somber music]</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>PHILIPPS: He starts bleeding,</i> <i>and soon after, he dies.</i> All the guys around are in shock. INTERVIEW: I know you said that this guy was sedated, but I’m gonna ask this anyway. Did he do anything that could be interpreted as alleging attacking Eddie in any way that would justify it? - No. - Did you interpret him as a threat at any point when Gallagher stabbed him? - I did not, no. - Okay. Any possible way that what he was doing could be interpreted as for medical purposes to help this guy? - No. <i>PHILIPPS: In that confusion,</i> <i>they gather up most of the members of the platoon</i> and get them to do a photo. - “Hey, we’re taking a group picture. Get in this fucking picture.” - The guys are right there. He’s like, “Bring it in. Bring it in.” - “I’m not getting in the fucking picture.” INTERVIEWER: They do it with the body right there and everything? - Yeah, the body was right there. - Have you ever seen the picture? - No. <i>[ominous music]</i> <i>PHILIPPS: They call them deer kill photos.</i> Knelt down, holding the head of this dead fighter... <i>As a trophy.</i> <i>INTERVIEWER: Do you know who took the pictures?</i> - No. There—there was multiple pictures being taken. <i>PHILIPPS: What they probably don’t say</i> when they came home is, “Yeah, this kid was sedated and we brought him in and he was our captive,” right? That doesn’t show up. - I don’t think that people— they thought, like, it was just a dead ISIS guy, like [indistinct]. Whatever, it’s fucking— it’s kind of— I think about it now as very unprofessional. - Did you guys take off after that? - Yeah, yeah. - And just leave the body there? - Yeah. - Okay. - He may very well still be just right there. <i>PHILIPPS: What that means is that this crime scene,</i> <i>where a murder is said to have taken place,</i> <i>where under normal circumstances</i> <i>you would come in and take photos</i> <i>and collect physical evidence,</i> is literally left out in the wind. <i>♪ ♪</i> - Craig called a meeting with everyone. - I told him that we can’t— you know, whether you— however you feel about this, we can’t let this continue, like, morally. - Eddie saw that we had had a little meeting. He was like, “Hey, are you— what were you guys talking about?” I went down and was like, “Hey, like, guys aren’t okay with that happening.” [gunfire in distance] <i>INTERVIEWER: Did he deny anything?</i> <i>Did he deny he killed him in any way?</i> I mean, obviously you witnessed it, but when— - No, he never denied it. - When he stabbed this ISIS captive, it was not something that was accidental or a mercy killing or a mistake in call. INTERVIEWER: In your mind, is what happened that day, and what happened with all these other incidents, war crimes? - Yes. INTERVIEWER: Is there any doubt in your mind that these are war crimes? - No. - The platoon got home from Iraq in September of 2017. <i>They reported it to their platoon leader</i> <i>and to people up the chain.</i> Nothing was done. <i>The guys were increasingly frustrated</i> <i>that it looked like their chief</i> <i>was gonna get away with murder,</i> and so they went back again and again until finally they told their chain of command, “Look, if you don’t take care of this, <i>“we are gonna go directly to the media</i> <i>and the Navy’s Criminal Investigative Service.”</i> At that point, the command’s like, “Okay, fine. We’ll take care of this.” INTERVIEWER: Have a seat down there. <i>PHILIPPS: The criminal investigation starts.</i> <i>Navy investigators bring the SEALs in and talk to them.</i> And they say, “We’re gonna arrest this guy.” <i>They raid his house, take his phones and computers.</i> <i>They take his combat kit</i> <i>where they find the knife that SEALs say he used.</i> <i>And on the phone, they find a photo of Edward Gallagher</i> <i>with the body with his knife</i> <i>that he had texted to other SEALs saying,</i> <i>“Good story behind this,</i> <i>got him with my hunting knife.”</i> So the Navy charges Edward Gallagher with murder, attempted murder. <i>NEWS ANCHOR: Tonight, this decorated Navy SEAL</i> <i>faces premeditated murder charges.</i> MALE REPORTER: Gallagher faces a maximum sentence of life without parole. - While the investigation’s going on, Edward Gallagher is working behind the scenes to try and spread the word that the SEALs in his platoon <i>are telling on him, essentially.</i> <i>SEALs say he had made physical threats against them,</i> <i>and the Navy becomes concerned</i> <i>that he’s trying to intimidate witnesses.</i> And so in September 2018, they arrest him, and they put him in the brig, awaiting trial. He’s going to be behind bars. - I’m innocent. I love you. <i>PHILIPPS: So Eddie Gallagher’s defense</i> and his family decided that they were really going to take this case to the public. <i>FEMALE REPORTER: Joining us now</i> <i>is Edward Gallagher’s wife, Andrea Gallagher.</i> <i>Andrea, good morning to you...</i> - And they find a really receptive audience with conservative media. - My husband has endured a lot of suffering at the hands... - Particularly with Fox News. <i>MALE REPORTER: Twice awarded the Bronze Star</i> <i>with V for Valor.</i> <i>MALE REPORTER: But now he’s behind bars,</i> <i>facing multiple charges</i> including the murder of an ISIS dirt bag. - If you were to literally create or imagine what a modern-day war hero would be, it’d be Eddie. - There’s at least six SEALs who are witnesses saying, <i>“We saw what happened,”</i> <i>but conservative media treated them</i> as whiny millennials that can’t hack it. - These witnesses are lying. - There were a few malcontents of guys that didn’t like being reprimanded for not wanting to engage in combat. - The prosecutors, they were totally unprepared for this. - A new twist in the case... <i>PHILIPPS: And they decided to try and cut off</i> <i>the flow of information,</i> which included tons of leaks, <i>and they wanted to find the leakers.</i> <i>FEMALE REPORTER: Lawyers for Edward Gallagher</i> <i>accusing military prosecutors of spying on them.</i> - And this was a huge story that made the prosecutors look really bad in an already politically charged case. - I expect that there should be congressional investigations on this. I think that there should be indictments. I think that certain NCIS agents should be taken out in cuffs. - And what’s bizarre about it is how closely and personally connected it is to President Trump. - Some of these soldiers are people that have fought hard and long. <i>PHILIPPS: Now, what is President Trump’s</i> <i>favorite show to watch?</i> It’s “Fox and Friends.” - Well, we need the intervention of the President of the United States. - I would love to see the president take a good hard look. - We’re pleading today for help from the people and from the President of the United States to come to our aid. <i>PHILIPPS: President Trump calls up the paperwork</i> on Chief Gallagher that he would need to pardon him, and indicates that he is thinking about doing that. - It’s a little bit controversial. It’s very possible that I’ll let the trials go on, and I’ll make my decision after the trial. - That’s so unprecedented. It has never happened. <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>And then Eddie Gallagher’s trial starts.</i> <i>JUDGE: Court will come to order.</i> - The prosecution start with their witnesses. <i>“Did you see him stab him?” “Yes, I did.”</i> <i>Another SEAL comes up.</i> “Did you see him stab him?” “Yes, I did.” <i>The prosecutors present the evidence,</i> they had a good case. <i>JUDGE: Government, please call the next witness.</i> <i>LAWYER: Yes, sir.</i> <i>Uh, the government calls SO1 Corey Scott.</i> <i>PHILIPPS: And this is very important</i> because Corey Scott was both the closest to the body... - Everything was under control when I got there... <i>PHILIPPS: He not only saw things the best,</i> <i>he was a trained medic.</i> - Yeah, he was still alive. He was sedated. <i>LAWYER: Will you please state your full name,</i> <i>spelling your last.</i> <i>SCOTT: Corey Noel Scott. S-C-O-T-T.</i> <i>PHILIPPS: But when he gets on the stand,</i> <i>things are a little strange.</i> I was sitting in the back of the courtroom, and I could sort of sense it. <i>For the first time during multiple days of the trial,</i> <i>Edward Gallagher brought his family in,</i> <i>two of his kids,</i> <i>and they had never been there before.</i> <i>And I kept thinking to myself,</i> “Why would you bring your kids “on the day that you know the star witness, “who saw this murder most closely, “is going to say, ‘You stabbed someone multiple times’?” <i>And then the first thing Corey Scott does</i> <i>is he makes sure that the judge tells him...</i> <i>JUDGE: You received grants of testimony immunity.</i> - You have total immunity. Don’t worry, you’re protected. Nothing you say here can come back to haunt you. <i>LAWYER: I’m gonna draw you directly to the incident</i> <i>with the ISIS prisoner, okay?</i> <i>SCOTT: Okay.</i> <i>LAWYER: Um, do you recall that incident?</i> <i>SCOTT: Yes, I do.</i> - He testifies that yes, he was there. Yes, Chief Gallagher was there. Yes, Chief Gallagher pulled out a knife. <i>LAWYER: How many times do you believe</i> <i>that Chief Gallagher stabbed the prisoner?</i> <i>SCOTT: I know he stabbed him one time.</i> <i>Anything else would be speculation after that.</i> <i>PHILIPPS: Corey Scott changed his story on the stand.</i> What Corey Scott had told investigators multiple times beforehand is... INTERVIEWER: You said he stabbed him one time, multiple times? - It was probably two or three times. Just like a stab about right here, just in a few times. <i>INTERVIEWER: Is there any possible way</i> <i>that what he was doing could be interpreted as</i> <i>for medical purposes to help this guy?</i> - No. INTERVIEWER: There is no way this was anything other than to attack and to kill this person? - No. - Okay. <i>LAWYER: What did you do next?</i> <i>SCOTT: I stayed at the scene</i> <i>until the ISIS fighter asphyxiated.</i> <i>PHILIPPS: The prosecutor sits down without having</i> gotten any of the testimony he expected, and very quickly the defense attorney stands up and starts asking... <i>LAWYER: You didn’t say that Chief Gallagher</i> <i>suffocated him, did you?</i> <i>SCOTT: No. PHILIPPS: Well...</i> if Eddie Gallagher didn’t kill that guy, who did? <i>LAWYER: Craig Miller suffocated him?</i> <i>SCOTT: No.</i> <i>LAWYER: Did you suffocate him?</i> <i>SCOTT: Yes.</i> <i>LAWYER: [sighs]</i> <i>How?</i> <i>SCOTT: I held my thumb over his ET tube</i> <i>until he stopped breathing.</i> <i>PHILIPPS: And there is just this heavy silence.</i> <i>LAWYER: No further questions.</i> - Because all the sudden, you can’t get this guy for murder because someone else has just admitted to the killing. <i>PERSON: Redirect. LAWYER: Yes, sir.</i> - The prosecutors are furious. <i>LAWYER: Multiple times you were asked</i> <i>what happened next after the stabbing.</i> INTERVIEWER: Do you remember what transpired when you’re still on scene after he stabbed him? <i>LAWYER: And you never mentioned</i> <i>that you had covered the tube in any way, did you?</i> <i>SCOTT: No.</i> I kind of stayed at the dude’s head, and then, like, for a few minutes until he died. - They’ve had six conversations with this guy. <i>LAWYER: And only now when you have</i> <i>your grant testimonial immunity...</i> - “Why didn’t you tell us this beforehand? You had all this opportunity.” <i>LAWYER: You can stand up there and you can lie.</i> <i>LAWYER: Objection. PHILIPPS: And he said...</i> <i>SCOTT: Chief Gallagher, he’s got a wife and a family.</i> <i>I don’t believe he should be</i> <i>spending a lot of his life in prison.</i> <i>PHILIPPS: “I—I had to admit to it now</i> “because he’s got a wife and a family, and I didn’t want him to go to prison.” <i>MALE REPORTER: A courtroom bombshell dropped by</i> <i>SEAL medic Corey Scott.</i> <i>The jury, seven fellow military men,</i> <i>will soon decide this decorated SEAL’s fate.</i> - The word around here is that military juries like this don’t generally take that long to reach a decision. Kate? - Very quickly, this jury of his peers, combat people, people who had been overseas fighting the very people who he had killed, came back and acquitted him of one thing after another. <i>MALE REPORTER: Not guilty of the stabbing,</i> <i>not guilty of the shootings,</i> <i>not guilty of all those things.</i> <i>They did find him guilty of taking a photograph.</i> <i>PHILIPPS: Posing for a photo with the dead body</i> <i>of the ISIS fighter.</i> <i>FEMALE REPORTER: Navy SEAL team leader</i> <i>Eddie Gallagher walking out of court a free man.</i> <i>PHILIPPS: He drove away jubilant</i> <i>in a convertible Mustang.</i> Within hours, he was on Fox News. - Thank you all for joining us this morning. - I heard the host say, “Do you have a message that you want to give to the SEALS?” - You’re part of a brotherhood. Remember, you know, you’re there to watch your brother’s back, he’s there to watch your back. Um, you just stay loyal. - Loyalty, which I read as, “You guys shouldn’t have gone against me.” <i>[ominous music]</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>EDDIE GALLAGHER: I just want to say that I’m—</i> <i>I feel completely grateful and blessed.</i> <i>ANDREA GALLAGHER: My husband is a hero.</i> <i>Our family was terrorized, and we’ve overcome it.</i> <i>EDDIE GALLAGHER: I knew I was innocent</i> <i>of these charges the whole time.</i> <i>LAWYER: Eddie is vindicated.</i> <i>We went through the process and came out victorious.</i> <i>EDDIE GALLAGHER: It’s still, uh, surreal at this point,</i> <i>and it’s hard to take in, and I got plenty of...</i> PHILIPPS: So Eddie gets acquitted of all but one minor charge, and he just goes back to his life being a SEAL. - Let’s, right now, bring in, for his first exclusive interview, Navy SEAL Operation Chief Eddie Gallagher, <i>his wife Andrea...</i> <i>PHILIPPS: Eddie kind of goes on this victory tour.</i> <i>NEWS ANCHOR: You’re with us now, live and in studio,</i> <i>to open up about their fight for justice...</i> <i>PHILIPPS: He goes on Fox News...</i> - And it’s been— I’ve been happy to be home, uh, be back with my kids and my wife, and just trying to enjoy life. I want to say thank you to you, Fox News, to you guys, Pete, for being with us from day one. - Thank you, Pete. - Thank you, Pete. - He, uh, has posted some really brazen stuff on social media. <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>It’s striking how strident he is in what he’s doing.</i> <i>It’s almost like he’s trolling the Navy</i> <i>‘cause he knows that—</i> <i>that the Navy really can’t touch him.</i> So the question is, what’s going to happen to this guy now? <i>MALE REPORTER: Just days ago,</i> <i>President Trump signed this brief order</i> <i>restoring Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher...</i> <i>FEMALE REPORTER: Trump reinstated his rank</i> <i>after he was demoted as punishment.</i> - And also expunging everything from my record so that I could retire honorably, and that it was like this thing had never happened. I’m overjoyed that he stepped in again as being the leader that he is. <i>PHILIPPS: I think the Navy saw that</i> <i>and was really troubled by it.</i> <i>They don’t want people to look at Eddie Gallagher</i> <i>and think, “Well, they just let him off.”</i> <i>And so I think they— they still thought</i> <i>they could teach him a lesson, and they said,</i> <i>“We’re gonna take away his Navy SEAL Trident.”</i> <i>You take that away, you kick him out of the SEALs,</i> but they quickly realized that they don’t have the political capital to do that. <i>FEMALE REPORTER: On Thursday, the president tweeted</i> <i>that the Navy would not be taking away</i> <i>Gallagher’s Trident pin.</i> - They wanted to take his pin away, and I said, “No, you’re not gonna take it away.” He was a great fighter. He was one of the ultimate fighters. <i>FEMALE REPORTER: Secretary of the Navy</i> <i>Richard Spencer has been fired.</i> <i>SPENCER: I don’t think he really understands</i> <i>the full definition of a war fighter.</i> <i>A war fighter is a profession of arms,</i> and a profession of arms has standards that they have to be held to, and they hold themselves to. <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>EDDIE GALLAGHER: I just want to retire peacefully</i> <i>with—with all the honors that I’ve earned,</i> <i>get back to my family, and—</i> you know, I don’t know how many times I’ve thanked the president. He keeps, you know, stepping in and doing the right thing. <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>PHILIPPS: What’s the Gallagher Effect?</i> Well, in some ways, it’s very real and has already happened. After he was acquitted, the Navy prosecutors in San Diego looked at the cases of some of his friends who were also facing charges for killing people overseas and just dropped the cases. They were afraid of bringing that circus of a trial back and losing all over again. - I’m nervous, you know, because I just don’t— I don’t know anything about this stuff, and, uh, you know? Like there’s a lot— there’s a lot at stake. INTERVIEWER: I won’t bring up your name in any way until I approach you about it. - Hey, I—I also don’t care. Like, I’m over it. Like, this needs to be done, we’ve been pushing for it... - Commanders who would’ve disciplined some bad SEALs aren’t gonna step up and do it because they don’t want to get their heads lobbed off by the president. <i>DILLE: There’s almost no one in the world who can</i> kill someone, you know, that personally with a knife, you know, looking at them. Literally the worst of the worst. - You know, this is not the story of one chief who killed someone. It’s the story of, you know, six or seven guys who said, like, “No, we’re gonna stand up and do the right thing.” - You know, it’s, like, our duty— it’s our job to not let this continue, and, uh, I was, like, really proud of the guys ‘cause everyone was, like, onboard with that. - One of the consequences of this is inevitably going to be that people... aren’t gonna wanna come forward. - We’ll be blacklisted or something, I’m sure, because of Eddie’s—Eddie’s boys will talk shit on us. Whatever, but, at this point I was like, “I don’t care.” - Yeah, I think there’s, like, a weight that’s lifted off of me right now. <i>PHILIPPS: Everybody in the SEALs watched</i> <i>what happened to the guys who came and testified.</i> <i>Some of them were ostracized,</i> <i>and ultimately, pretty much nothing came of it.</i> <i>And so they look at that and say,</i> “Even if I saw something, why would I wanna go through that?” <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>[soft music]</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>[chime]</i> <i>[soft piano]</i> <i>[low tone]</i>