Report: Esper Told Acting Navy Secretary To Apologize To Fired Captain

TPM Article Topics
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Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly’s apology to former Navy Captain Brett Crozier on Monday apparently did not come about on his own.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1302171
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Guess there were concerns about morale. Either that or a mutiny.

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Modly’s got until maybe end of week. They’ll have to cut him loose if this half-assed “apology” doesn’t make the news go away.

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A coerced apology is a meaningless one. A turd’s a turd no matter how much it insists to the contrary.

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So Modly made a halfassed apology, but does anyone know if the “acting” Secretary of the Navy’s little jaunt was to fly from DC to Guam, rant on the deck of the USS Theodore Roosevelt and then fly back to DC? That’s a hell of a lot of money to massage Trump’s ego.

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Esper is the problem. He along with Pompeo is really a disgrace to West Point. The Honor code: “A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do” is something they both seemed to have skipped.

For both of them has been twisted to be “a Trump sycophant will lie, cheat, steal, and punish anyone who does not”

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So does this mean that Secretary Mark Esper does not now have confidence in Modli?

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So Modly said Capt. Crozier was ‘naïve and stupid’ to send out that letter, not caring it might leak. RIGHT?

So what was Modly, giving that kind of a speech to a crew that obviously respected their commander? SOMEBODY TAPED IT so by ‘his’ standards, he was naïve and STUPID in thinking that nobody would leak it.

Esper was a buddy of Pompeo’s at West Point. I know Modly was a midshipman; are all these incompetents from the same pool, buddies of Pompeo?

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I wonder what Esper’s game is here. Don’t get me wrong. Modly was very much out of line and needed to apologize. But, knowing how Trump views apologies as a weakness, Esper must have known by forcing one from Modly, he was effectively ending his days.

And if Esper is really smooth, he just might convince Trump to bring back Crozier. If this comes to pass. I’ll agree with @castor_troy’s take on Esper.

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That’s a long way to go just to show people the spittle on your chin.

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That won’t happen. Everyone sidelined by Trump has to wait until next January, depending on the outcome of the election, to have their careers taken off of life support.

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Modly’s smear campaign will cost him his job - because the orange Dumpsterfire dislikes nothing more than being embarrassed. For embarrassment, Crozier’s letter protecting his soldiers was small stuff compared to Modly’s mess of an aftermath.

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Modly was in the navy as a helicopter pilot I believe. His rant seems a bit like maybe jealousy.

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I expect both Esper and Modly to be gone within a week. Once you start apologizing, you move to the top of Trump’s “maybe in the next week or two” list. There are two major sins in Trumpistan: Getting caught and apologizing after getting caught. Of these, by far the worst is apologizing. Getting caught can always be made to disappear down the memory hole, but an apology is there for all to see for all time.

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In summary: Loose lips embarrass dumb shits.

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Best part:

Esper told Modly via office staffers to apologize

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Depends how he got there. If he just jumped on a regular Air Force flight, there’s hardly any marginal cost involved. Of course, the likelihood of any Trump official flying like that seem pretty low.

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Agree with everyone here that Modly’s tenure can be measured in days/weeks. Apologizing for f*ckups, whether Rump did it directly or not, is one of the great sins that can be committed by cult members. Modly’s job was to fire Crozier and berate him going out the door. I believe that this was from Rump directly.

Now, it’s blown up in the Navy’s face and Rump can’t understand for the life of him why it hasn’t just gone away. What’s the problem? Rump gave an order, it was done and PERFECTLY.

So, Modly has to go.

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Well, one out Trump could use if he wanted to reinstate Crozier as captain would be wait until he recovers from Coronavirus and say it was all a misunderstanding. That is, assuming Crozier does recover…

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Current Occupant: “My Navy needs turds. Big, beautiful ones. After all, they float, don’t they?”

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