Inside the Ouster of Capt. Brett Crozier

Civilian control of the military is part of the American bedrock. Acting Navy secretary Thomas Modly used that prerogative unwisely Thursday when he short-circuited a preliminary military investigation and fired an aircraft carrier captain who had pleaded for help against the coronavirus pandemic sweeping his crew.

The sudden firing of Capt. Brett Crozier, the commanding officer of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, has created another unsettling moment for a country traumatized by the worsening pandemic — and for a Navy already rocked by President Trump’s remarkable intervention last year in disciplinary cases involving the elite Navy SEALs. Crozier’s crew cheered him as a hero as he walked alone down the gangway, leaving what will almost surely be his last command. Former vice president Joe Biden tweeted his support for Crozier.

It isn’t clear what role Trump may have played in Crozier’s ouster. Modly told one colleague Wednesday, the day before he announced the move: “Breaking news: Trump wants him fired.” Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper apparently obtained White House approval for a preliminary investigation into Crozier’s conduct, a probe that Modly preempted with the firing. Esper appears to have left the final decision about how to handle the matter to Modly, who last month was passed over as Trump’s permanent choice for the job.

In taking the extraordinary step of relieving Crozier in the midst of the outbreak on board his ship, Modly argued that the commander had become “overwhelmed” by the crisis and violated the chain of command by writing an emotional four-page plea for help on March 30. That unclassified document leaked into print the next day. “We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die,” he wrote in the unclassified memo. Some Pentagon officials believed Crozier’s inflammatory language added to panic aboard the ship and among crew members’ families.