Marine Officer Who Demanded Accountability for Afghanistan Debacle Jailed Awaiting
by Debra Heine
The Marine officer who received viral attention in August for posting a video on social media blasting military leadership over the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, has been thrown in the brig, the United States Marine Corps has confirmed.
Lt. Col Stuart Scheller was taken to a military brig on Monday for violating a gag order, his father told the military blog Task & Purpose.
“All our son did is ask the questions that everybody was asking themselves, but they were too scared to speak out loud,” said Stuart Scheller Sr. “He was asking for accountability. In fact, I think he even asked for an apology that we made mistakes, but they couldn’t do that, which is mind-blowing.”
The elder Scheller said that his son is scheduled to appear before a military hearing on Thursday.
“They had a gag order on him and asked him not to speak,” the senior Scheller said. “He did, and they incarcerated him. They don’t know what to do with him.”
The Marine Corps issued a statement confirming that Scheller, a former battalion commander, has been sent to the brig.
“Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller Jr. is currently in pre-trial confinement in the Regional Brig for Marine Corps Installations East aboard Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune pending an Article 32 preliminary hearing,” said Capt. Sam Stephenson, a spokesman for Training and Education Command. “The time, date, and location of the proceedings have not been determined. Lt. Col. Scheller will be afforded all due process.”
According to Task & Purpose, Scheller is accused of four offenses under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Scheller is accused of the following offenses under the UCMJ: Article 88: Contempt toward officials, Article 90: Willfully disobeying a superior commissioned officer, Article 92: Failure to obey an order, and Article 133: Conduct unbecoming, a Marine Corps spokesperson told Task & Purpose.
However, it’s not yet certain whether Scheller will face a court-martial. The Marine will go through an Article 32 hearing, which will determine whether there is enough evidence to warrant a court-martial. But no matter what the hearing finds, Scheller has already made a name for himself through his viral videos. Publicly criticizing senior leadership while still in uniform the way Scheller did was a move so bold that even members of other branches of the military are talking about it.
“People are lying if they said they didn’t feel a little bit like he did the day he posted the video,” said a commenter on the Air Force subreddit in reaction to the news on Monday that Scheller had been sent to the brig and is expected to appear before a military hearing on Thursday.
“[B]ut most of us have the better judgement than to post something like that (especially in uniform),” the commenter added.
Another commenter on the unofficial Marine Corps subreddit echoed that sentiment, writing “You don’t out-dick the Marine Corps. The green weenie always wins. This is no surprise.”
In his viral video—posted on the same day that 13 U.S. service members were killed in an ISIS bombing attack at the Kabul airport in Afghanistan—Lt. Col. Scheller expressed extreme frustration with the way the military withdrawal from Afghanistan had been handled, and demanded accountability.
“People are upset because their senior leaders let them down and none of them are raising their hands and accepting accountability and saying ‘we messed this up,’” he said.
“Did anyone raise their hand and say, ‘we completely messed this up?’” Scheller asked, going on to note that his Marine friends have been wondering if all of the lives lost over the past 20 years had been in vain.
“What I will say is, potentially all of those people did die in vain if we don’t have senior leaders to own up, raise their hand and say, ‘we did not do this well in the end,’” he said. “Without that, we just keep repeating the same mistakes—this amalgamation of the economic/corporate/political/ higher military rank not holding up their end of the bargain,” he added.
Scheller concluded: “I want to say this very strongly. I have been fighting for 17 years. I’m willing to throw it all away to say to my senior leaders, I demand accountability.”
Retired U.S. Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher, who has been providing fundraising support for Scheller through his Pipe Hitter Foundation, posted an update in Scheller’s case in a Facebook post on Monday.
In his post, Gallagher shared a message from Scheller’s parents, Stu Scheller and Cathy Scheller, which began: “It is with a heavy heart that we, his parents, are informing you that our son, Lt. Col Stuart Scheller, has been incarcerated by the USMC this morning, September 27, 2021. He was issued a Gag order which he broke this weekend by posting on social media.”
In a post on Tuesday, Gallagher noted that Sec. of Defense Lloyd Austin, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and General Kenneth McKenzie would be testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“Will they be held accountable for the debacle in Afghanistan?” he asked, sharing a tweet about the hearing by former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik. “Losing a 20 year war with no pull out plan that led to the death of 13 young Service Members?”
Scheller wrote a number of long posts on his Facebook page over the weekend, including one on September 25th in which he criticized Presidents Donald Trump, Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, as well as Generals James Mattis, David Petraeus, Michael Flynn, Julian Alford and Francis Donovan. Scheller also called out Task & Purpose, the military blog that broke this story.
“You don’t understand me,” he wrote. “I do plan to bring the whole system down. Yes, Task and Purpose, I am brave enough to say it again. What say you now?”
Scheller ended his September 25th post by daring his commander to arrest him. “What happens when all you do is speak truth and no one wants to hear it. But they can probably stop listening because… I’m crazy… right? Col Emmel please have the MPs waiting for me at 0800 on Monday. I’m ready for jail.”
In a subsequent video, Scheller upped the ante, declaring that he would bring charges against Marine Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), for dereliction of duty.
“To recap my position, in the fallout of Afghanistan I demanded accountability in my senior leaders and I stated then that I understood that I might lose my battalion commander seat, my retirement and my family’s stability,” Scheller said. “As it has played out, I have in-fact lost all three of those things.”
Scheller indicated that rather than pursuing a court-martial over his critical remarks, the Marines had offered him a non-judicial punishment and separation under honorable conditions, so long as he is willing to give up his commission and not fight for his retirement.
“The reason I can’t let it go and the reason I’m not just taking an offer is because I feel like there are general officers in our institution who aren’t being held accountable,” Scheller said.
Addressing McKenzie, Scheller said, “You made comments that are public record on August 31st, that stated you made bad assumptions, that you left hundreds of Americans in Afghanistan, and then you itemized pieces of equipment that total hundreds of millions of dollars.”
“I know you are a great American,” Scheller continued. “I know you didn’t intend to fail. I know you have served very honorably and are probably a great leader. That doesn’t absolve you from the accountability of your bad assumptions.”
“I have read the entire UCMJ [Uniform Code of Military Justice] in the last two weeks of my purgatory, all of the punitive articles,” Scheller said. “And it turns out that all military officers are subject to the UCMJ,” Scheller said in the video. “Because it appears to me that no general officers are willing to hold each other accountable, I am submitting charges against Gen. McKenzie for his bad assumptions – not because I’m vindictive, but because the senior leaders need to be held accountable to the same standard as us.”
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Debra Heine reports for American Greatness.
Photo “Lt. Col. Scheller” by Stuart Scheller.
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M1Carbine v Mini 14
USA – -(AmmoLand.com)- During his confirmation process for ATF director, David Chipman said very little publicly – even turning his Twitter account to private. Now that the White House has withdrawn his nomination, Chipman can’t seem to shut up, and he’s got nothing good to say about Biden’s team, who he claims left him hanging out to dry.
In a recent interview with The New York Times, Chipman said he felt abandoned by the administration and on “an island” when pro-gun groups began attacking him. No one from the White House, he claimed, even bothered to call.
“Either this was impossible to win, or the strategy failed,” Chipman told the newspaper, adding, “This was a failure.” Later in the interview, Chipman described nominating someone like him – a lifelong anti-gun activist – as a “gangster move” by White House staff.
Once his nomination fizzled, Chipman found it “unusual” that no one from Biden’s team offered any options.
“In the back of my mind, I always thought that there would be a Plan B, but so far there hasn’t been,” Chipman told The New York Times.
In the interview, Chipman confirmed he has returned to work at Giffords – which we revealed in a story published Monday. The story also showed how Giffords are using Chipman as a fundraising tool.
Chipman is Delusional
Many pro-gun groups contributed to Chipman’s demise, including the National Shooting Sports Foundation but, ultimately, his nomination was killed by hundreds of thousands of American gun owners who contacted their senators and told them to reject Biden’s pick.
Still, Chipman remains fixated on the NSSF and its senior vice-president for government and public affairs, assistant secretary, and general counsel, Larry Keane.
“Larry Keane put up a photo of me that he knew was false, trying to get me killed,” told the newspaper.
The photo purportedly showed Chipman posing on the burnt remains of the Branch Davidian compound after the bloody siege in Waco, Texas. Once NSSF and dozens of other websites discovered the agent in the photo was not Chipman, the photo was taken down. Keane told the Times Chipman’s death threat allegations were “categorically false.”
Personally, I believe the allegation that Keane, the NSSF, or anyone else tried to get him killed is evidence that Chipman is in dire need of serious psychological help.
Chipman is Gangster???..No
To be clear, nominating a paid anti-gun activist to oversee the lone federal agency tasked with regulating the firearms industry was not gangster. It was stupid and meant to send a message.
Chipman’s nomination – likely the brainchild of Susan Rice– was intended as an insult to American gun owners, and that is exactly how it was received. Of course we responded forcefully – what did the White House expect? This is our lifestyle they have chosen to attack.
The Chipman saga reminds me of when I was a young boy on my uncle’s farm and accidentally touched an electric fence. I got zapped and learned never to do that again. By nominating Chipman, the Biden-Harris administration touched the fence and got zapped hard. Unfortunately, I doubt they learned a lesson. If they continue to target gun owners, they’re destined to get zapped again and again.
This story is presented by the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project and wouldn’t be possible without you. Please click here to make a tax-deductible donation to support more pro-gun stories like this.
About Lee Williams
Lee Williams, who is also known as “The Gun Writer,” is the chief editor of the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project. Until recently, he was also an editor for a daily newspaper in Florida. Before becoming an editor, Lee was an investigative reporter at newspapers in three states and a U.S. Territory. Before becoming a journalist, he worked as a police officer. Before becoming a cop, Lee served in the Army. He’s earned more than a dozen national journalism awards as a reporter, and three medals of valor as a cop. Lee is an avid tactical shooter.
Married couple Jeni Pearsons and Michael Store aren’t wealthy.
Pearsons works at a nonprofit theater in Los Angeles , and Store is a transportation coordinator in the film industry. The couple has been saving for retirement for years, buying silver here and there when they could afford it. To keep their property safe, they rented a safe deposit box at U.S. Private Vaults.
They thought everything was above board until news broke earlier this year about a raid at the Beverly Hills business.
The government alleged that the company conspired with customers to sell drugs, launder money, and stash ill-gotten goods.
LA COUNTY ABUSES ASSET FORFEITURE, SEIZING MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF MONEY WITHOUT DUE PROCESS
Armed with a warrant, FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration agents spent five days ripping several hundred safety deposit boxes out of the walls and laying claim to its contents.
Prosecutors argued they were within their rights and that the boxes contained weapons and drugs. They also took jewelry, precious metals, and stacks of money to an undisclosed warehouse. Their final haul was worth around $86 million.
The problem is that federal authorities took the items from people who hadn’t been accused of a crime, including Pearsons and Store.
They’ve been able to keep it because of the country’s vague standards of civil forfeiture law, which allows the government to seize property and assets without any actual evidence of criminal wrongdoing.
During the raid, the authorities also seized Joseph Ruiz’s life savings.
The unemployed chef, who had a side job selling bongs made from liquor bottles, had stored $57,000 in his safety deposit box.
Prosecutors argued that he couldn’t possibly make enough money to have that much saved up and accused him of being an unlicensed marijuana dealer.
He went to court to get his money back and won. The government dropped its case against him after he was able to provide documents that showed the source of his money was legitimate.
“It was a complete violation of my privacy,” Ruiz told the Los Angeles Times. “They tried to discredit my character.”
Ruiz is one of 800 people whose money and property were taken in the March 22 raid. Six months later, the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles hasn’t been able to prove criminal wrongdoing by the majority of box holders whose belongings the government is actively trying to keep.
Like Ruiz, 65 others have filed court documents claiming the government grab was unconstitutional.
CIVIL ASSET FORFEITURE CRIES OUT FOR REFORM
An investigation by the Los Angeles Times shows that the government’s reasons for taking money and property against numerous others were just as flimsy as it was in Ruiz’s case.
Agents claim drug-sniffing dogs alerted them to the scent of narcotics on the seized cash, but multiple analyses of drug-dog alerts have consistently shown high error rates, some hitting past the 50% mark.
“In effect, some of these K-9 units are worse than a coin flip,” Washington Post columnist Radley Balko said in a post about the accuracy of canine searches. He added that “while dogs are indeed capable of sniffing out illicit drugs, we’ve bred into them another overriding train: the desire to please. Even drug dogs with conscientious handlers will read their handlers’ unintentional body language and alert accordingly.”
Federal authorities have also pointed to the use of rubber bands to keep stacks of cash together, as well as other normal ways of storing currency, as tell-tale signs of money laundering and drug trafficking from the U.S. Private Vaults box holders.
The government also said in court documents that it deposited all the seized money in a bank, which experts say would make it impossible to test which drugs may have come in contact with which bills.
And even though U.S. Private Vaults was indicted in February on charges of conspiring with unnamed customers to sell drugs and launder money, no one has been charged.
The criminal case against them hasn’t moved forward, and the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles isn’t saying why, the Los Angeles Times reported.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Unfortunately for many of the box holders, in civil forfeiture cases, a person is often guilty until proven innocent. No criminal conviction is required, and the government only has to show that it’s more likely than not that the money or property taken was linked to illegal activity.
Civil forfeiture was initially one way to cripple large-scale criminal enterprises by taking their assets. However, the practice has been widely abused, with victims forced to give up their homes and property and then spent small fortunes trying to get them back.
“Today, aided by deeply flawed federal and state laws, many police departments use forfeiture to benefit their bottom lines, making seizures motivated by profit rather than crime-fighting,” the American Civil Liberties Union said. “For people whose property has been seized through civil asset forfeiture, legally regaining such property is notoriously difficult and expensive, with costs sometimes exceeding the value of the property.”
For Pearsons and Store, the government’s seizure of their silver is unacceptable, and they have decided to fight back.
They, along with six others, have teamed up with the Institute for Justice for a class-action lawsuit challenging the government’s raid as an illegal search.
“The government’s theory is that having cash makes you a presumptive criminal, and I think every American should be worried about that,” IJ senior attorney Rob Johnson said.