The Wall Street Journal - 26.11.2019

A4| Tuesday, November 26, 2019 PWLC101112HTGKRFAM123456789OIXX ** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

CAPITAL JOURNAL

By Gerald F. Seib

Then-Navy Secretary Richard Spencer, shown earlier this month in Pensacola, Fla., was ousted over the weekend.

TIMOTHY SCHUMAKER/U.S. NAVY/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK

likely would have ended in the

rescission of his Trident.

But other questions re-

mained, including why the

ousted Navy secretary, Richard

Spencer, had tried to open a

back-channel to the White

House for talks on Chief Gal-

lagher, and whether Mr. Spen-

cer was subsequently fired for

standing up to Mr. Trump or

because he went around the de-

fense secretary in trying to bro-

ker a solution.

The lack of clarity prompted

calls for a Senate hearing to in-

vestigate the matter.

“We have many unanswered

questions about Secretary

Spencer’s departure,” Sen. Tim

Kaine (D., Va.) said Monday in a

statement. “The Senate Armed

Services Committee must fully

investigate what happened to

ensure accountability.”

Chief Gallagher thanked Mr.

Trump in an appearance on Fox

News on Sunday while lashing

out at Navy officials for pursu-

ing the administrative review.

His lawyer, Timothy Parla-

tore, said Mr. Trump was clear

in a Twitter message last week

that he wanted Chief Gallagher

to remain a SEAL. “It’s stun-

ning that the Navy spent a

week dithering around over

whether a tweet could consti-

tute an order,” he said.

Mr. Spencer, in a CBS inter-

view airing Monday, said the

decision to drop the review

process and let Chief Gallagher

keep his Trident pin sent a

message “that you can get

away with things.” “We have to

have good order and discipline.

It’s the backbone of what we

do,” Mr. Spencer said.

Mr. Trump, in remarks at

the White House Monday, de-

fended his actions. “I will stick

up for the warriors,” he said.

The White House hasn’t re-

sponded to questions about the

White House’s involvement in

the military’s review process or

in Mr. Spencer’s dismissal.

Navy commanders and top

Pentagon officials had opposed

Mr. Trump’s decision in mid-

November to pardon two other

service members accused in

war-crimes cases and to order

that Chief Gallagher’s pay and

rank be restored. He was de-

moted after he was acquitted of

serious crimes including mur-

der in 2017 but found guilty on

a charge of posing for pictures

with an enemy fighter’s corpse.

Despite the order by Mr.

Trump to restore Chief Gal-

lagher’s rank and pay, the Navy

was proceeding with an admin-

istrative review that was ex-

pected to remove him from the

SEALs. Mr. Spencer denied over

the weekend that he had

threatened to resign if Mr.

Trump moved to intervene on

Chief Gallagher’s behalf.

Mr. Esper disputed Mr.

Spencer’s contention he didn’t

threaten to resign.

Based on conversations with

Mr. Spencer leading up to Sun-

day, “I had every reason to be-

lieve he was going to resign,

that it was a threat to resign” if

the president allowed Chief

Gallagher to keep his Trident

pin, Mr. Esper said.

President Trump ordered

U.S. defense officials to allow a

Navy SEAL to remain a member

of the elite group, Defense Sec-

retary Mark Esper said Mon-

day, a move that ended a con-

troversy that had pit military

commanders against the White

House and cost the Navy secre-

tary his post.

Mr. Trump’s order came in a

phone call Sunday to Mr. Esper,

the Pentagon chief said, in-

structing that Chief Petty Offi-

cer Edward Gallagher be al-

lowed to retain membership as

a SEAL despite his involvement

in a war-crimes case. In a state-

ment the same day, the Penta-

gon said Mr. Esper had directed

that Chief Gallagher retain his

Trident pin, which symbolizes

membership in the Navy com-

mando force.

Chief Gallagher will retire at

the end of the month, the Pen-

tagon said.

“The president is the com-

mander in chief. He has every

right, authority and privilege to

do what he wants to do,” Mr.

Esper said Monday, answering

questions that have emerged in

the days since Mr. Trump inter-

vened in three military-justice

cases, including Chief Gal-

lagher’s, on behalf of service

members accused by superiors

of wrongdoing.

The direct intervention of

Mr. Trump in the Navy’s delib-

erations regarding Chief Gal-

lagher answered a key question

in the saga, that of why the

Pentagon on Sunday terminated

an administrative hearing that

BYNANCYA.YOUSSEF

ANDGORDONLUBOLD

Trump Pressed SEAL’s Case, Esper Says

Retired Admiral Is

Choice to Head Navy

President Trump has chosen

a retired Navy admiral who also

has worked as a health-care

lobbyist to assume the post of

Navy secretary following the

ouster of Richard Spencer.

Mr. Trump’s choice as Navy

secretary, Kenneth Braithwaite,

is the current ambassador to

Norway and has been a consis-

tent voice for Mr. Trump’s cam-

paign to press members of the

North Atlantic Treaty Organiza-

tion to contribute more funding

to their collective defense.

Mr. Braithwaite graduated

from the Naval Academy in

1984 and served as a naval avi-

ator on active duty until 1993,

when he became a reservist,

rising to the rank of rear admi-

ral before his retirement.

While in uniform, he spent

time, in part, as a legislative li-

aison, working as the Navy’s

go-between with Capitol Hill.

As a civilian, he served as a se-

nior adviser to the late Sen. Ar-

len Specter of Pennsylvania, a

lawmaker who served as both

Republican and Democrat. Mr.

Braithwaite also has worked as

the head of a health-care lob-

bying group and as an execu-

tive of a hospital group-pur-

chasing company.

Mr. Braithwaite is a long-

time donor to health-care politi-

cal-action committees and GOP

candidates, and he has previ-

ously donated to Mr. Trump’s

campaign, according to Federal

Election Commission filings.

As ambassador to Norway,

nominated by Mr. Trump in

2017, Mr. Braithwaite has been

involved with defense issues

with that country, a NATO ally.

Mr. Trump has prioritized

forcing NATO allies to boost

their defense spending to 2% of

gross domestic product. He has

singled out Norway, including

sending a letter in 2018 to Nor-

wegian Prime Minister Erna

Solberg urging the country to

move more quickly.

AccordingtoNATOesti-

mates, Norway will spend 1.7%

of its GDP on defense in 2019.

This fall, Mr. Braithwaite

published two opinion pieces in

the Norwegian newspaper VG,

calling on officials to fulfill their

mandate as the U.S. and Nor-

way deepened their bilateral

defense relationship.

—Ben Kesling

Kenneth Braithwaite

DEPARTMENT OF STATE

U.S. NEWS

Putin Wins Again—at the West’s Expense

is driving pro-Trump and

anti-Trump forces further

apart.

Fiona Hill, until recently

the top Russia expert on the

staff of President Trump’s

National Security Council,

summarized the Russian suc-

cess on this front succinctly

in her testimony before a

House impeachment hearing

last week: “The impact of the

successful 2016 Russian cam-

paign remains evident today.

Our nation is being torn

apart. Truth is questioned.

Our highly professional and

expert career foreign service

is being undermined.”

Mr. Putin appears so con-

fident in his success on this

front that he actually is pub-

licly gloating about it.

“Thank God no one is accus-

ing us of interfering in the

U.S. elections anymore; now

they’re accusing Ukraine,” he

said at a conference in Mos-

cow last week.

Ukraine’s new president,

Volodymyr Zelensky, heads

early next month into his

first meeting with Mr. Pu-

tin—whose forces have in-

vaded his country and lopped

off part of it—knowing that

American support for

Ukraine can be, and was,

caught up in domestic U.S.

political fights. Ukraine’s

leader thereby enters talks

with Mr. Putin less certain of

support from Washington in

his country’s confrontation

with Russia.

T

hese successes on the

U.S. front are only the

top of the list of trends

moving Mr. Putin’s way.

The British political sys-

tem is being torn in similar

fashion by a debate over how

much Russian disinformation

was unleashed in an attempt

to convince citizens to vote

in 2016 to leave the Euro-

pean Union.

British Prime Minister Bo-

ris Johnson, a Brexit advo-

cate, is declining to release a

sensitive report by the Par-

liament’s intelligence com-

mittee on Brexit interference,

setting off a partisan argu-

ment just as Britain heads to-

ward a new national election.

Regardless of whether

Russia actually influenced

the Brexit vote, the reality,

three years later, is that Brit-

ain appears to be on the road

toward exiting the EU in the

messiest, most damaging

way possible. What’s bad for

European economic and po-

litical unity is good for Rus-

sia, so Mr. Putin can put the

continuing Brexit mess as a

big entry on the positive side

of his 2019 ledger.

Meanwhile, the most im-

portant members of the

North Atlantic Treaty Organi-

zation are descending into an

argument about the function-

ing and future of the 70-

year-old alliance, originally

formed to deter expansionist

moves by Moscow.

French President Emman-

uel Macron, articulating what

other NATO leaders are re-

luctant to say, has criticized

Mr. Trump for his decision to

pull back American forces in

Syria and open the way for a

greater Syrian role for both

Mr. Putin and Turkey’s au-

thoritarian leader, Recep

Tayyip Erdogan.

In fact, Mr. Macron has

said that NATO is suffering

from “brain death” and ques-

tioned the current validity of

its pledges of collective de-

fense. German Chancellor An-

gela Merkel has taken excep-

tion to her French

counterpart’s public airing of

NATO’s dirty laundry. Bottom

line: NATO members France,

Germany, Turkey and the U.S.

are, well, not quite in sync.

From Mr. Putin’s point of

view, discord within the main

Western military alliance is

good news of the first order.

A

t the same time, that

American retreat in

Syria has helped fur-

ther a trend in which Mr. Pu-

tin is becoming the man to

see about Middle Eastern af-

fairs.

In fact, Syria has worked

out smashingly well for Mr.

Putin: American troops and

their Kurdish allies did the

lion’s share of the work to

extinguish Islamic State and

its self-declared caliphate

there, which Russia actually

opposed, too. Now, having

finished the dirty work,

Washington has essentially

ceded oversight of Syria to

Moscow and allowed its

Kurdish allies to be obliter-

ated or pushed aside.

Russia’s most reliable re-

gional proxy, Syrian leader

Bashar al-Assad, now ap-

pears secure in his position

and certain to survive his

country’s civil war. Having

assumed new prominence in

Syria, Mr. Putin has Middle

Eastern leaders of all variet-

ies—Saudi Arabian, Iranian,

Turkish and Israeli—beating

a path to his door for consul-

tations.

Mr. Putin is a former KGB

operative, and it shows. He

learned during the Cold War

how to use disinformation

and propaganda to exploit

weak spots in Western de-

mocracies, and the dark

space of the internet has

opened a whole new playing

field for him. He is a master

of his craft.

Vladimir Putin has had a

good year, and it just keeps

getting better. He now is col-

lecting his winnings on mul-

tiple fronts.

Even Mr. Putin must be

amazed at how well he is

achieving his

goal of sowing

discord within

the U.S. politi-

cal system.

First, his

agents inter-

fered in the 2016 election.

Now they can sit back and

watch as their efforts to de-

flect blame away from Mos-

cow and toward Ukraine are

bearing fruit, in the form of a

bitter American debate that

health-insurance option that

would have no premiums for

people in states that didn’t ex-

pand Medicaid under the Af-

fordable Care Act.

Their proposals are less far-

reaching than Medicare for

All, which would end the cur-

rent U.S. health system in fa-

vor of a single government-

provided plan covering

everyone. The plans by Massa-

chusetts Sen. Elizabeth War-

ren and Vermont Sen. Bernie

Sanders would effectively end

most private insurance.

The attacks on public-op-

tion proposals are coming in

part because such plans are

polling more favorably than

Medicare for All.

Sixty-five percent of adults

said they support a govern-

ment-run public option that

would compete with private in-

surance, according to a Novem-

ber Kaiser Family Foundation

poll. Fifty-three percent support

a national Medicare for All plan.

In the Democratic presiden-

tial debate Wednesday in At-

lanta, Messrs. Biden and Butt-

igieg defended their buy-in

plans as ways to expand cov-

erage while preserving roles

for private insurance.

Supporters say buy-in plans

would lower costs and cover

more Americans while pre-

serving the current system of

private health insurance.

Industry opponents say a

buy-in is merely a Democratic

stepping stone to get to Medi-

care for All, which they also op-

pose. They say the proposals

would raise costs, hurt rural

hospitals, imperil private insur-

ance and result in too much

federal spending.

With public support for

Medicare for All slipping, op-

ponents are ramping up attacks

on more moderate alternatives

from former Vice President Joe

Biden and South Bend, Ind.,

Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

Those Democratic presiden-

tial hopefuls are up against in-

dustry groups, Republicans

and Democratic challengers

criticizing their proposals to

let people buy coverage in a

government-run health plan.

The Partnership for Amer-

ica’s Health Care Future, an in-

dustry group that includes

hospitals and insurers, recently

released a study that found a

public option would increase

the number of people without

health coverage. Other groups

have also been releasing re-

search critical of the proposal.

During last week’s Demo-

cratic presidential debate, the

Trump campaign sent emails

saying Mr. Biden and Mr. Butt-

igieg’s public-option alterna-

tives “are designed to kill pri-

vate health plans.”

“The reasons the insurance

industry is fearmongering

about this are exactly why a

majority of Americans support

it—companies would be forced

to compete with the public op-

tion and provide families with

better deals,” said Andrew

Bates, a spokesman for the Bi-

den campaign.

Health care has become a

major fault line between can-

didates who are at odds over

how far to go in expanding the

federal government’s role in

providing health coverage.

A public option would let

people purchase a government

health plan that would com-

pete against private insurers.

Mr. Buttigieg’s campaign has

estimated it would cost about

$1.5 trillion over 10 years, and

be paid for by rolling back cor-

porate tax cuts and federal sav-

ings in negotiating drug prices.

Mr. Biden’s plan includes

letting people purchase a

BYSTEPHANIEARMOUR

Democrats’

Health Proposals

Face Scrutiny

65%

Adultswhosupport

government-runpublicoption

fice of U.S. Trade Representa-

tive Robert Lighthizer declined

to comment. Earlier Monday,

President Trump said the new

agreement, known as the U.S.-

Mexico-Canada Agreement, or

USMCA, is “sitting on Nancy

Pelosi’s desk.”

If a final deal with the ad-

ministration attracts support

from Democrats and Mrs.

Pelosi clears the way for a vote,

USMCA could pass Congress in

the coming weeks or months.

Revisions to the deal would

also need approval in Mexico

City and Ottawa.

Congressional passage of the

pact would be a victory for Mr.

Trump, who campaigned in

2016 with a promise to renego-

tiate the North American Free

Trade Agreement or withdraw

from the 1994 pact.

WASHINGTON—House

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, facing

criticism from Republicans for

not embracing a renegotiated

trade agreement with Canada

and Mexico, said Monday that

she was awaiting final written

commitments from the Trump

administration.

“We are within range of a

substantially improved agree-

ment for America’s workers,”

the California Democrat said.

“Now, we need to see our prog-

ress in writing from the trade

representative for final review.”

A Trump administration of-

ficial confirmed Mrs. Pelosi’s

description of the state of ne-

gotiations and said it appears

one of the president’s priorities

is close to advancing. The of-

BYWILLIAMMAULDIN

USMCA Progress Cited

By Pelosi, White House

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