This Friday morning, the president of the United States tweeted this:
Many of his critics thought the last two words of the tweet -- "Remember sailor!" -- were a sign that Trump is losing his mind, but every Fox viewer knew exactly what he meant:
Donald Trump appears to have compared the FBI director he fired to the Navy sailor who was jailed—and then pardoned by the president—for taking photographs inside top-secret areas of a nuclear submarine. Former sailor Kristian Saucier was jailed for the unauthorized possession and retention of national defense information, but Trump pardoned him in March. Trump previously compared Saucier’s case to the scandal over Hillary Clinton’s private email server, questioning why the sailor was sent to prison but Clinton was not.
Fox has run many sympathetic stories about Saucier. This is from January 2017:
The mother of jailed former U.S. Navy sailor Christian Saucier joined "Fox & Friends" Thursday to continue her mission to have President Donald Trump pardon her son.
Saucier is currently serving one year in federal prison for taking six photographs of a classified area of a submarine, at a time when cellphones were allowed on submarines.
Kathleen Saucier, Christian's mother, said she has had a renewed hope of a pardon for her son since the election of Trump....
Kathleen said her son lost his phone that contained the photos, which were then retrieved by the military.
A 2016 Politico story describes the events of this case somewhat differently:
Prosecutors allege that Petty Officer First Class Kristian Saucier used a cellphone camera to take photos in the classified engine room of the nuclear submarine where he worked as a mechanic, the USS Alexandria, then destroyed a laptop, camera and memory card after learning he was under investigation.
... To some, the comparison to Clinton’s case may appear strained. Clinton has said none of the information on her server was marked classified at the time. In many cases, it was marked as unclassified when sent to her by people in the State Department more familiar with the issues involved.
By contrast, sailors are trained early on that the engine compartment of a nuclear sub is a restricted area and that much information relating to the sub’s nuclear reactors is classified.
It should be noted that there's no evidence Saucier attempted to disseminate the photos. Many sympathizers believe he received an unduly harsh sentence.
Kathleen Saucier also appeared on Fox & Friends on March 2 of this year. President Trump pardoned her son a week later.
In the 2016 vice presidential debate, Mike Pence alluded to what he described as disparate treatment of servicemembers and civilians with regard to the mishandling of classified information, though he didn't mention Saucier by name. Kathleen Saucier followed up with a post to the Facebook page of the conservative blog Chicks on the Right:
The right is full of grievance collectors, one of whom is the Grievance Collector in Chief who sent that tweet this Friday morning. This is what conservatism is right now: a movement for the airing of resentments and the pursuit of revenge for those resentments. Saucier has been pardoned. The case is resolved. But the anger hasn't been quelled, nor will it ever be. Right-wingers never stop being angry about anything they've ever been angry about. That's how they sustain tribal solidarity. That's why they always vote Republican.
They'll never change. We just have to outvote them.
Crossposted at No More Mr. Nice Blog
