Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly resigned Tuesday, a day after his inflammatory speech to sailors aboard a Coronavirus-stricken aircraft carrier brought calls for him to be fired.
WASHINGTON — Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly resigned Tuesday, a day after his inflammatory speech to sailors aboard a coronavirus-stricken aircraft carrier brought calls for him to be fired.
Modly’s resignation did not come as a surprise, but nonetheless represented yet another twist in an extraordinary series of events following the spread of COVID-19 on the Theodore Roosevelt. After the outbreak forced the Navy to sideline the carrier in Guam, Modly relieved Capt. Brett Crozier on April 2, saying he had “lost confidence” in Crozier after the captain’s memo was obtained and published, first by the San Francisco Chronicle and soon after by many other news organizations.
After criticizing Crozier’s decision to write and then widely circulate his memo — “It shows weakness,” Trump said — the president seemed willing to give Crozier a second chance. “His career prior to that was very good,” Trump said. “I don’t want to destroy somebody for having a bad day.” But Trump’s reading of “the political tea leaves” might persuade him to make an exception in Crozier’s case, according to the former senior Navy official. The captain’s popularity with his crew could be easily discerned by the raucous send-off the sailors gave him when he left the ship for the last time, videos of which circulated widely on Twitter, Trump’s favorite social media platform.
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