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Trump restores local SEAL’s rank

(Photos Supplied)

WASHINGTON, D.C. (WOWO/Fox News): President Donald Trump stepped in on the case of a Bishop Dwenger graduate turned Navy SEAL who was recently acquitted of war crimes.

Eddie Gallagher was found not guilty back in July of six of the seven charges against him, including aggravated assault and premeditated murder, during his final deployment to Iraq. Prosecutors in the case were accused of spying on emails belonging to the defense, and a military advocate criticized the conditions Gallagher had been kept in during the early part of the proceedings.

Gallagher had been accused of killing a captive ISIS militant, but someone else confessed to the crime while on the witness stand.

In the end, the only crime Gallagher was convicted of was for posing for a photo with a dead militant. Gallagher received no prison time but instead lost a rank – he was in line to be promoted to chief petty officer and was instead demoted to 1st class petty officer – until he received a phone call from Trump on Friday.

“Today, President Donald J. Trump signed… an order directing the promotion of Special Warfare Operator First Class Edward R. Gallagher to the grade of E-7, the rank he held before he was tried and found not guilty of nearly all of the charges against him,” the White House said in a statement.

Trump also issued pardons to Army First Lieutenant Clint Lorance and Army Major Mathew Golsteyn in the same action.

Lorance had been convicted of second-degree murder for ordering his soldiers to open fire and kill three men in Afghanistan, according to Fox News. Lorence’s supporters say he killed Taliban fighters. Nine members of his unit testified that the men were innocent.

Golsteyn will have a charge of premeditated murder against him dropped. He was charged with in the 2010 death of a suspected Taliban bomb maker.

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