President Donald Trump touted his record pardoning several service members accused of war crimes during his first term as president, and shared details about how now-Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth played a role securing those pardons.
Trump told The Spectator in a Thursday interview that Hegseth would call him to advocate on behalf of service members facing war crime charges who “did what they were trained to do” during his first administration.
“What he wanted to talk about was military,” Trump said of Hegseth. “In fact, whenever he called me, it was always to get somebody that was in trouble because he was too aggressive militarily out of a jail. You know, I got numerous soldiers out of jails because they did what they were trained to do.”
SECDEF HEGSETH RESPONDS TO RUMORS HE DRAFTED ‘LIST’ OF MILITARY OFFICIALS HE WILL PURGE
United States Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, left, walks with Britain’s Defense Secretary John Healey prior to a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of a NATO defense ministers meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels, on Feb. 12. (Johanna Geron/Pool Photo via AP)
In November 2019, during his first administration, Trump issued pardons to Army 1st Lt. Clint Lorance, Army Maj. Mathew Golsteyn and Navy Special Warfare Operator Chief Eddie Gallagher. Lorance was serving a 19-year sentence in prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, for murder for ordering his soldiers to open fire on unarmed Afghan civilians in 2012 when Trump issued the pardon.
Golsteyn also faced charges for murdering an alleged Taliban bomb maker in 2010 and then burning the remains in a pit.
Gallagher also faced murder charges for stabbing an Islamic State prisoner in 2017, and was acquitted in July 2019. However, he was convicted for posing in a photo next to the corpse and subsequently was demoted one rank. Trump’s pardon restored him to his previous rank.
“The liberals within the military put them in jails,” Trump told The Spectator. “They teach him to be a soldier. They teach him to kill bad people, and when they kill bad people, they want to put them in jail for thirty years. And Pete was really into that.”
Hegseth, a former host with Fox News and member of the U.S. Army National Guard, was vocal about these cases ahead of their pardoning, and previously said Lorance, Golsteyn and Gallagher were not “war criminals, they’re warriors” during a 2019 segment with “Fox & Friends.” Hegseth also interviewed Golsteyn in May 2019 on “Fox & Friends.”
Pete Hegseth appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee in January for a confirmation hearing to lead the Defense Department. (Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The Department of Defense referred Fox News Digital to the White House for comment. The White House did not provide additional comment, and it’s unclear if the Trump administration is considering pardons for other service members accused of war crimes.
During Hegseth’s confirmation hearing for Secretary of Defense in January, Hegseth told lawmakers on the Senate Armed Services Committee he wanted to ensure lawyers “aren’t the ones getting in the way” of service members serving on the frontlines from having “opportunity to destroy… the enemy.”
“We follow rules, but we don’t need burdensome rules of engagement that make it impossible for us to win these wars,” Hegseth said.
Lawmakers cited Hegseth’s comments on the cases during his confirmation hearing, and Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Jack Reed, D-R.I., noted that fellow service members who served alongside Lorance and Gallagher spoke out against them and reported their actions.
“They did their duty as soldiers to report war crimes,” Reed said in January. “Your definition of lethality seems to embrace those people who do commit war crimes, rather than those who stand up and say, ‘This is not right.'”
Hegseth served as an infantry officer in the U.S. Army National Guard, completing deployments to Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan and Iraq.
He earned two Bronze Star Medals, awarded to those who displayed heroic achievement or service in a combat zone.