President Trump pardoned two U.S. service members accused of war crimes Friday and restored the rank of a third who was charged with posing for a picture with the corpse of an enemy combatant in Iraq, but was acquitted of murder.
One of the men Trump pardoned, Army 1st Lt. Clint Lorance, is currently in the sixth year of a 19-year sentence for ordering his soldiers to open fire on three unarmed men in Afghanistan, killing two of them. Meanwhile, Army Maj. Matthew Golsteyn was awaiting trial for allegedly murdering a suspected Afghan bombmaker in 2010 before Trump granted clemency, and Special Warfare Operator Chief Edward Gallagher, a 15-year Navy SEAL, will have his rank restored after he was docked for the photograph.
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