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He did admit to texting the Sewing Circle that “This will only work if we’re all on the same page. You guys want to meet at my house tomorrow and talk about it?” Then, without even being prompted, Craig blurted out, “We’ve never tried to create something out of nothing!” Tim reminded him that he hadn’t been asked that and had brought it up all on his own. I guess his guilty conscience was speaking for him.
Tim pushed through Craig’s verbal diarrhea to get him to admit that despite not being able to remember the simplest things during his testimony, he was simultaneously revealing new details he had never before divulged more than two years after the supposed incident and more than a year from his initial interviews with NCIS.
What it boiled down to, we theorized, was that when Craig initially reported that the fighter never reacted to the stabbing, he—or the prosecution—became concerned it could be argued the fighter was already dead. In that scenario, even if there had been a stabbing, it wouldn’t be murder. But if Craig claimed blood spurted out, it would mean the fighter’s heart was still pumping. The problem with adding that detail was that, as I said, there was no sign of blood on me, my knife, or the sheath, and not enough blood on the body in the pictures to support such a claim. The prosecution’s own
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wanted popcorn while they prepped the helmet-cam footage that showed Craig, T.C., and Dille laughing as they flew the drone over the ISIS body, using it as a prop. “Does that refresh your recollection?” Craig was asked after they showed the video. “Honestly, it does not,” answered Craig, his cockiness back and peaking at the wrong time.
Tim showed Craig another video. In this one they were trying to bounce the drone off the ISIS dude’s head. Seeing himself laughing with Dille and messing with the corpse, after describing how upset he had been about his death, almost got Craig to admit he had been part of the drone-flying crew.
“Did you ever receive a direct death threat from Eddie Gallagher?” His answer took a while and was barely perceptible. He really didn’t want to answer this question truthfully. “No. Uh-uh,” he softly mumbled. “And yet you told the San Diego sheriff you did. Did Special Agent Warpinski then text you about a week later to say that he had spoken with the sheriff’s office about your carry permit and was getting it expedited?” Pause, then quietly: “I don’t remember him saying that.” “Want to see it?” “Yes.” Tim showed him his texts with Warpinski. “Does that refresh your memory?” “Yes, it does.”
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“Asphyxiated, as a combat medic, that means somebody who is deprived of oxygen, doesn’t it?” “Yes.” “Why’d you use that word?” “That was what killed him.” “You didn’t say that Chief Gallagher suffocated him, did you?” Tim pointed at me. “No.” “Did Craig Miller suffocate him?” He gestured toward the door, ostensibly where Craig would be. “No.” Tim walked back to the podium and gripped it tightly. He turned away from the jury and locked eyes with Corey. “Did you suffocate him?” “Yes.”
“After Chief Gallagher left the scene, I was left there monitoring him,” Corey explained. “I thought he would die. He was continuing to breathe normally as he had been before. So I held my thumb over his ET tube until he stopped breathing.”
“Did NCIS ever ask you this question?” “No.” “There was never any spurting blood, was there?” “No.” Tim was flowing. He glanced at the jury periodically, but his focus was on Corey. “Did anybody talk about turning Chief Gallagher in for a murder during deployment?” “No.” “When did you first hear that?” “Would have been the beginning of 2018.” “And who was driving the idea of having Chief Gallagher reported for murder?” “It was Chief Miller. Petty Officer Miller at the time.”
“Did Chief Gallagher kill this terrorist?” “No.” “Why did you kill him?” “Because I knew he was going to die anyways, and I wanted to save him from waking up to whatever was going to happen next to him.”
While I watched Corey talk, it struck me how different his demeanor was from the other guys who had testified. Stoic and confident. Composed. They had been nervous, speaking quietly and stammering over themselves, guzzling water throughout their testimony. What does someone being honest have to worry about? Corey was repeating facts, not hemming and hawing trying to paint the picture the prosecution wanted, covering up others’ lies, developing amnesia. I thought, “Good for him for getting this off his chest.” He’d had this bottled up inside for so long, I can’t imagine what it was like for
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His helmet cam had footage showing the ISIS fighter arriving at our location and the start of my treatment, but he either shut it off or someone deleted it a minute or so in. When asked why the video stopped, he answered, “I turned it off to go get my med bag, I believe.” He then testified that “I turned it back on during the treatments.” Really? I thought. Where’s that footage? That should show everything that happened. Why weren’t we seeing those videos?
The prosecution asked, “Did you provide that laptop, that Alienware laptop to the government?” “I did.” “Did you delete any of the videos on it?” “I did not,” T.C. answered. But someone sure as shit had—the videos had been saved in sequential numbers: 294, 295, 296, etc., and several numbers were missing. Who the hell knew what those missing videos showed? Definitely not a stabbing.
Tim then asked about his admission that he would do whatever it took to take me down. “During your interview with NCIS, didn’t you say ‘I don’t care. I’ll go straight to the Commodore. Whatever you need me to sign. I was kind of bluffing because I didn’t see him do specifically, I guess, anything, like stab the prisoner. I wasn’t out that day. The girl, I didn’t see Eddie pull the trigger or the bullet go out.’”
“‘I can’t help but shake my head when Marcus Luttrell calls people cowards. He’s got more of an imagination than J.R. Tolkien.’ Did you say that to the group?” Tim asked. “Yes, sir, I did.” “That’s because Marcus Luttrell had called you a coward on TV, is that correct?”
“That is not the reason why I said that, sir.” “I’m asking you a very simple question. Do you think Marcus Luttrell is a liar?” “Yes, sir.” “And he was a Navy SEAL in Afghanistan back in 2005? Everybody on his team was killed except for him?” “Yes, sir,” Vriens spat defiantly.
To me, this exemplified exactly who these punks were. This little puke wasn’t yet in high school when Operation Red Wings happened, but talks shit about work SEALs were doing while he was struggling with eighth-grade homework? Trying to tear down far better men than himsel...
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I was later told that after Vriens completed his testimony, he was observed sitting in his truck in the parking lot, pounding the steering wheel and sobbing uncontrollably. He knew how badly he had fucked up.
Marc asked if there was any physical evidence showing a crime had been committed, pointing out there was no proof this unnamed ISIS guy was even dead. “I would agree with that,” Warpinski said like he was trying to gain Marc’s approval. “There’s no autopsy or anything to confirm it.”
Marc’s next line of questioning transitioned to Warpinski and NCIS’s misconduct during the investigation. If Marc didn’t know the NCIS manual better than Agent Warpinski did, he certainly better understood which rules he had broken. Marc quoted section numbers and pages in the manual, specific examples of NCIS breaking investigative protocol, if not the law.
Warpinski admitted at times he “inadvertently” didn’t follow the manual. Marc let that one dangle, and moved on to the next pin: no body, no autopsy, no DNA. He tapped on that for a while, then seamlessly returned to discussing proper investigative practices. Again, it was all cooperative responses, all “correct,” and “agreed” answers from Warpinski. I had to assume at some point he’d realize he was being set up and the hammer would fall.
Marc handed Warpinski the transcript of his interview with Craig. When he was finished reading it, Marc said, “Let me ask you again, did you or did you not tell Chief Miller—the first interview on the first day of the case—you already had your take on the investigation?” “I stand corrected. I did.” “You already had your take on the investigation even though you had no proof, right?” “I think it was likely said in a—”
“I’m not asking you what you think. I’m asking you to please answer my questions, and I’m trying to be polite. You told Chief Miller you already had your take on this
investigation, even though you had no proof in your possession, right? That’s what you said?” “That’s what I said, yes.” “… you’re going after one guy here and one guy only. Am I right about that?” “No.” A quick, defiant...
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“It’s not a search for the truth here. You’re giving the first witness a pat on the back and telling him he’s done nothing wrong when you knew nothing about what happened. That’s what you told...
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Marc continued to embarrass the NCIS agent. He had him acknowledge that Miller never said anything about blood spurting like baby vomit until he was on the stand. Marc asked Warpinski about the comments he made to Dille to get him to come on board. At Dille’s initial interview he told him he had built a “slam-dunk case.” “That was a lie?” Marc asked. “Yes,” Warpinski answered. “You lied to him?” “Of course.” “...
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It was just further proof that Warpinski had never been interested in finding the truth and leading an unbiased investigation. Before he had any facts or evidence, he was willing to say and do anything to help frame me for murder, regardless of whether the accusers had their own agenda. He gave them an immediate pass for anything they might have done, as long as they helped him get me.
But Warpinski couldn’t, or wouldn’t. Answers were no longer straightforward and uncomplicated. If he was going down, it was going to be with a fight. He knew that under the Feres Doctrine, as an active duty member of the military, I couldn’t sue him or NCIS for the domestic terror they had unleashed on my family, even if they had broken the law. He weaponized that knowledge, using it to unabashedly break every investigatory rule. His arrogance on the stand actually increased. As Marc highlighted each infraction, he became more defiant rather than apologetic or contrite, acting as if the
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“You shared your opinion of the case with witnesses, right?” “That’s correct.” “And you told this court previously that sharing your opinion of the case with a witness is not a good practice, right?” “Correct.”
Marc concluded his dismantling of Warpinski with this: “And you never asked any witness in this case, not in the hundreds of text messages or the videos or the meetings or your reports or when you made arrests, you never asked anybody why an eighteen-year decorated combat warrior who spent his life training to help people and helping people, would get down on his knees, open his medical bag, start applying lifesaving procedures, and then all of a sudden completely out of nowhere, flip a switch and decide to kill the guy. You never asked anybody that question, did you?”
“Slightly. It was talked about amongst myself and Dylan Dille. It was at the end when we were breaking down. He [Dille] approached me, asked what I saw. I described it to him, and it appeared that we were talking about the same incident, and he had a disagreement with whether or not the shot should have been taken. I, on the other hand, was confident that the right shot was taken. That was the extent of that. We carried on.”
It was a bit choppy, and the edits made it jump around, but that didn’t change what General Abbas had flown all the way from Iraq to say: that he had been there when the ISIS fighter was brought to us, and stayed through his death. At no point had I stabbed him. He died from his battlefield wounds.
You could tell McDonald wanted to have his Tom Cruise moment, trying to be tough and get Gio to crack, but it completely backfired. Instead, this combat-hardened marine special operator stayed calm and collected while this navy lawyer who looked like Kip from Napoleon Dynamite fired off nonsensical allegations, raising his voice and for the most part looking like a spaz.
I spoke with Gio later and told him how much I appreciated what he had done. Testifying for me ultimately ended his career, but he was more interested in retaining his honor than covering his ass, something few involved in this can say.
that he had been stabbed. No stab wounds and not enough blood in the photographs, certainly not enough to support Craig’s dumbass baby-vomit description. He went into great detail about how Craig’s version was medically impossible and not what the photos show at all. If he had been stabbed as Craig depicted, the blood wouldn’t have gushed out the way he described, with more blood on the terrorist’s neck, shoulder, and on me. I loved it: He basically used science to call Craig a liar.
To achieve that, they brought charges of bullshit offenses against Jake in an attempt to entrap him, and sent a “target letter” to Lieutenant Commander Integrity, threatening a criminal investigation into him. By charging and threatening Jake and Integrity, then denying them testimonial immunity, they made sure no lawyer representing them would allow them to testify and give the government additional ammunition against them.
(The command also began the process of taking each of their Tridents for supporting me. The charges against Jake were later dropped, the target letter to Integrity rescinded, and the plan to take their Tridents halted after President Trump intervened in my own Trident Review Board.)
The judge stopped him, I don’t know exactly why, but the sentiment was clear: Craig made the stabbing accusation only after months of petty complaints didn’t achieve the mutiny’s goals.
“What was Chief Gallagher’s reaction to you informing him that there might be an investigation?” “His reaction was that he thanked me.” “Why is that?” “I think that he was tired of the rumors and the hearsay, the emotional turmoil of dealing with this. I think at one point he had even made a statement to the effect of he was going to initiate an investigation of himself to clear his name.”
It showed how these prosecutors had no soul. They didn’t know me, yet they proved they would do everything in their power to lock me up. I don’t believe they thought I was guilty. They only wanted the win.
I’m done listening to diplomatic excuses for why the prosecutors did they what they did: “Oh, they’re just doing their job. Only following orders. Maybe they thought they had a case in the beginning and when they realized they didn’t, it was too late to turn back.” Forget that, I don’t want to hear it. They’re absolute scumbags. They saw the corruption, the lack of evidence, but went after me full-bore anyway. That makes them bad human beings as far as I’m concerned. I’m not excusing them for what they put my family through.
“This case shouldn’t be at this point. We shouldn’t be doing closing arguments. This should have been dismissed. But because the government lacks the fortitude to dismiss this case, they want you to do that job for them.
“And, finally, there’s a piece of evidence that is significant, the knife itself. You saw the knife. We did the whole display of putting the gloves on, then unfortunately it’s not here so I’m not going to be able to do this, but it’s going to go back in the jury room with you. As long as you put gloves on, you can take a look at it. “And guess what, they tested it. You heard Special Agent Warpinski say that they sent it off for testing. No blood. “The inside of the sheath is leather. If there was blood on the knife there would be blood inside the sheath. There was no blood inside the sheath.
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“There was no autopsy. There is no video. There’s no wound. There’s no blood on the knife. There’s no blood on the leather sheath. There’s no reports. As I said in the beginning, no body, no forensics, no science, no evidence, no case, no murder.
“Lieutenant Commander Integrity said one of the first people who asked for an investigation was Eddie Gallagher himself. He thanked Lieutenant Commander Integrity for starting the investigation because he thought it would clear his name. Eddie Gallagher was under the impression that a fair and impartial investigation would clear him. He was under the misimpression that NCIS would conduct a fair and impartial investigation. He wasn’t expecting Joe Warpinski.”
“On the first day of the investigation, in the first interview, in the first minute, without knowing the first fact, Warpinski told Chief Miller, ‘We already have our take on this. We’re going after Eddie Gallagher.’
I also wanted to provide the public with enough objective information so they can make their own decision. Yes, this book is my family’s side of the story. But by providing full court transcripts, audio, and video, my hope is that people will take the time to do their own research before deciding.
