Did Eddie Gallagher cross the line? (with Dan Taberski)
Skullduggery
Michael Isikoff, Daniel Klaidman, Victoria Bassetti
4.0 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 11 May 2021
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The 2019 trial of Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher gripped the nation due to the heinousness of the crimes of which Gallagher, a SEAL team captain, was accused. And though he was charged with the 2017 murder of an Iraqi detainee, he was acquitted of all charges but one — posing in a photo with the young dead Iraqi man. But, over the course of the six episodes of the new podcast “The Line,” written and produced by Dan Taberski, the story of how that man died becomes much, much more complicated. Taberski joins Michael Isikoff, Daniel Klaidman and Victoria Bassetti on this episode to discuss his podcast and its shocking new revelations, as well as the culture of the military’s elite special operators that Taberski spent so much time learning about firsthand, through the community of SEALs he spoke with for the show. What are the true costs of a twenty-year war on the psyches of the men and women who fight it? And, what responsibility do we, the American people, have for how they draw the line between what is acceptable and what is forbidden in war?
GUEST:
- Dan Taberski (@dtaberski), writer and executive producer of “The Line” podcast
HOSTS:
- Michael Isikoff (@Isikoff), Chief Investigative Correspondent, Yahoo News
- Daniel Klaidman (@dklaidman), Editor in Chief, Yahoo News
- Victoria Bassetti (@VBass), fellow, Brennan Center for Justice (contributing co-host)
RESOURCES:
- “The Line” podcast (Jigsaw Productions & Apple Originals), available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify
- “Eddie Gallagher’s shocking claim that SEALs intended for detainee to die” by Luis Martinez (ABC News, May 5)
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| 0:00.0 | The grain of truth in the whole thing is that that ISIS fighter was killed by us and that nobody at that time had a problem with it. |
| 0:13.0 | We killed that guy, our intention was to kill him. Everybody was on board, not one person's life. |
| 0:20.0 | Your intention was to kill him. It was to do medical scenarios on him until he died. |
| 0:27.0 | A live tissue lab, until that prisoner wasn't alive anymore. |
| 0:34.0 | In September 2018, Eddie Gallagher, a decorated Navy SEA with two bronze stars, was arrested and charged with war crimes, including executing with a hunting knife and unarmed 17-year-old ISIS-DTini in Mosul, Iraq. |
| 0:50.0 | Gallagher vehemently denied the charges, and together with his wife mounted a public relations campaign that made him a hero to Fox News and supporters of Donald Trump, convinced that he had been unjustly accused while doing what the US government had sent him to do kill terrorists that threatened the rest of us. |
| 1:09.0 | Gallagher beat the rap after a highly publicized trial in which a key government witness recanted his testimony. |
| 1:15.0 | But in the extraordinary new podcast series The Line, Gallagher essentially confesses to the crime, asserting he and his colleagues did indeed agree to kill the prisoner with unneeded medical treatment because he says he was going to die anyway. |
| 1:30.0 | By examining Gallagher's case, the line explores the fuzzy boundaries that separate war crimes from warfare. |
| 1:37.0 | We'll talk to the host of The Line, Dan Tabersky, on this episode of Skull Duggery. |
| 1:44.0 | I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States. |
| 1:51.0 | I will to the best of my building. |
| 1:53.0 | Reserve, protect and defend. |
| 1:56.0 | Constitution of the United States. |
| 1:58.0 | So help me God. |
| 1:59.0 | So help you God. |
| 2:00.0 | So help me God. |
| 2:01.0 | So help me God. |
| 2:02.0 | So help me God. |
| 2:03.0 | So help me God. |
| 2:06.0 | I'm Michael Issaqov, Chief Investigative correspondent for Yahoo News. |
| 2:09.0 | I'm Dan Clyde, Editor-in-Chief of Yahoo News. |
... |
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