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Crime Story Episode 25: Dan Taberski

Host: Kathleen Goldhar

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: I'm Kathleen Goldhar. This is Crime Story. Every week, a new crime with the storyteller who knows it best.

SOUNDCLIP

DAN TABERSKI: You see them do really heroic things that is really hard to ignore when you're doing a story like this. It's really important to remember that, at least for me, that regardless of what happened, what they're doing is incredible. But what it turned into was just a mess.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: One of my favourite podcast makers is a guy named Dan Taberski. He's always done an amazing job at exploring the best way to tell a story and to bring us in. So I'm pretty excited that Dan has agreed to join us to speak about one of his hardest hitting projects yet, The Line. The Line is about a platoon of Navy SEALS on tour in Iraq. They accuse their chief, Eddie Gallagher, of murdering an ISIS prisoner of war, an injured teenager and, under international law, a war crime. Dan speaks to more than 50 Navy SEALS about the killing and how blurry the line between right and wrong has become in modern warfare. It's pretty much unheard of for Navy SEALS to talk about what happens during deployment, let alone to turn on one of their own. But they do. And these accusations lead to a sensational military trial, one where former U.S. President Donald Trump weighs in and Eddie Gallagher's wife turns the whole thing into a debate about the soul of America.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: I'm so happy to have you, Dan. Welcome.

DAN TABERSKI: Yeah, my pleasure. I’m happy to be here.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Now, I gave a little bit of an intro to the story, but maybe just fill in a few of the blanks and just remind those listeners or maybe those who haven't heard The Line, who is Eddie Gallagher and what's he accused of doing?

DAN TABERSKI: Eddie Gallagher was the chief of a platoon of SEALS in SEAL Team 7. And he was part of the deployment to Mosul in 2017 to clear that city from ISIS. And in the process, he was accused of committing a war crime, of killing an unarmed prisoner that they had taken hostage after a bombing. The whole sort of series revolves around what he allegedly did or did not do.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And the murder itself that he's accused of, it's pretty gruesome. Can you tell me a little bit about what he's accused of doing?

DAN TABERSKI: Yeah, it was a young ISIS fighter. People were guessing at his age. I think at the end, we figured out that he was 17. He was brought in wounded. Eddie Gallagher was trained as a medic, as are a couple of other people in the platoon, and they were tasked with keeping him alive. And a lot of this is recorded on helmet cam that the SEALS are wearing, which is amazing because you can see a lot of what it's like to be in a platoon of SEALS, which is this sort of weird, underregulated part of the military that they're doing this, in any case. But we got all this footage and you can see it. And then right when Eddie Gallagher’s standing over the victim, the camera cuts out, and then several Navy SEALS in this platoon later accused him of stabbing that ISIS fighter, killing him.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Stabbing him in the neck, right?

DAN TABERSKI: Stabbing him in the neck. Yeah. So a couple of times.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So the helmet camera stops just as Gallagher goes down and approaches the boy. And then the photographs. The 17-year-old is dead, right? And there's more than one picture. What are the pictures?

DAN TABERSKI: The pictures are of Eddie Gallagher. Eddie Gallagher is holding a corpse. It looks like middle of the day desert Iraq. And he's propping up a corpse with one hand, and in the other hand, he's holding a hunting knife that he carries around with him. As we reveal later in the series, he texted that photo to a friend and said, good story behind this one. Got him with my hunting knife, which essentially sounds like a confession, right? But there are other pictures too. I mean, it wasn't just him. It was also the people in the platoon were taking pictures with the body as well. They took a platoon picture that had seven other SEALS from the platoon in the picture. Several of those SEALS went on to accuse him of the murder. So it does get a little fuzzy immediately.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Can you tell me a little bit? You said that the kid was 17, that you figured out he was 17. But do we know much more about who he was?

DAN TABERSKI: No, which is incredible to cover a story like this. It's really hard to think of another case like it where the murder victim isn't even named. He never even gets named in the trial. We did some investigative journalism and worked with another reporter in Iraq. We basically narrowed it down to two people that we believe it could potentially be. One kid was named Moataz, the other kid was named Khalid, and both were 17.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: It is striking. I mean, it came across in your podcast and then the trial, how really the victim does kind of disappear in all of this.

DAN TABERSKI: Yeah. We don't even say his name until, or what we think is his name until the very last episode. Like a minute, like a couple of minutes before it's over. It's more about the behaviour of the alleged murderer and not any sort of… nobody feels bad for the victim.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Well, that was the other thing. I mean, it was interesting when you would interview… we'll get to you talking to Eddie Gallagher, but even some of the other ones, you were saying this kid, and he would say this terrorist

DAN TABERSKI: This terrorist.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Like you were seeing him in a different light. But there really was this idea that he was a fighter who was going to try to kill them, and they just killed him.

DAN TABERSKI: Yeah. I mean, he was injured in a second strike that the SEALS had ordered on a building. And several other ISIS fighters were in it and were already killed. And this is just one of the people that escaped, and he was then captured. But yeah, he was ostensibly trying to kill.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And what were Gallagher and his team doing in Mosul? What were they supposed to be doing in Mosul?

DAN TABERSKI: Well, they were supposed to be doing what the military calls triple A, advise, assist and a company. So basically, President Obama got us out of the war, or pulled troops out. And so ostensibly, every troop that went in after that fact was just advising. Like they weren't really sort of fighting. They were just there to help. The task was to clear Mosul of ISIS. ISIS had control of Mosul. I can't remember the exact numbers, but it's very few ISIS fighters and like many thousands of civilians. So it was a lot of civilians, very few fighters, very hard to tell the difference. And their job was to work with the Iraqis to clear Mosul. What it actually ended up being, so they weren't supposed to be in combat, but they were… because we got the unredacted trial, we could hear all the details, and they were in combat every day. And so they were basically fighting to clear Mosul.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Did you have a sense of who the SEALS were before making this podcast?

DAN TABERSKI: No, none. I was, I mean, certainly interested. I'm not a military guy. Nobody in my family's in the military. Like it's just not… it's not my… like my father was a conscientious objector from Vietnam. Like it's not… it's not our jam at all. So I didn't know anything about them, which is part of why I wanted to do it. And this comes up a lot in journalism, right? It's like very often, you know, some outlets would have waited for somebody who was in the military to do the reporting on this story, right? For somebody who knows a lot about this stuff. And that's just not my approach. My approach really is to come as an outsider and then absolutely commit to understanding to the point where it's undeniable, that at least the opinions and conclusions that we arrive at, it's undeniable that they're at least somewhat valid, that if we spend enough time talking to enough people, getting to know enough people, that what we've learned will be worthwhile. And so that was the goal. So I didn't know anything about them. So it was incredibly fascinating.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Well, that's one of the things I loved about it was your discovery. We were along for the ride of your discovery. And that's what I find in a lot of your work. And you bring us along with you.

DAN TABERSKI: I mean, for me, it's the goal. I don't pursue the things that I get. I think if you get it, it feels like a waste of time because you already know what you think. And then everything you're doing, even though you think you're being open and you're open to wherever it goes, we'll see. You think you are, but you already have your opinion super solidified, and it gets hard to sort of talk yourself out of that. But for this, just like all the projects I enter, I really didn't know what to think. I didn't know. I didn't know what I thought. I couldn't figure it out. And so the process of reporting is literally following the process of us figuring it out. And so I'm glad you can hear that because that's what I like about it too.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So Eddie Gallagher eventually goes to trial. Who testified against him?

DAN TABERSKI: His platoon. It was several. Even one Navy SEAL testifying against another Navy SEAL is bananas. It's just so pounded into their heads that they're about brotherhood and they're about their connection to each other and that they're about being the quiet professionals and they're just about don't talk about this stuff. And so to watch them get up one by one and testify against him was pretty… to hear that, it's pretty incredible. I didn't see it, I heard it, and it's pretty incredible. Yeah.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Two people that really stood out, and I know you're going to know who I'm about to ask you about, the first one is about his wife, Andrea. I mean, she obviously wasn't a SEAL.

DAN TABERSKI: She might as well.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: But I mean, she sure has it in her.

SOUNDCLIP

ANDREA GALLAGHER: We have to go behind bars to visit a man who's a decorated war hero. My children are just beside themselves. Well, I want everyone to know that number one, my husband is innocent. These lies and rumours that were cobbled together by millennial SEALS are shameless and utterly false.

DAN TABERSKI: It's not what you expect. I Mean, yes, she was… Andrea Gallagher is, and I always feel bad saying this because it's weird to talk about. There's like one woman in this entire thing, and it's her. And like immediately, all you want to do is talk about what she looks like because it's notable. She's gorgeous. She's beautiful. But she's poised and she's aggressive, and she is not playing the dutiful wife who just sits by quietly until justice is served. She is going to do what she can to get her husband out, and she does. She raises hundreds of thousands of dollars, and she gets him to lawyers. And she basically goes on this sort of marketing spree to sort of change the perceptions of why he's on trial, who he is and whether or not he should be on trial at all. And so yeah, she's incredibly effective and fascinating.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And she's the one that gets Trump's attention, right?

DAN TABERSKI: Yeah. She talks to anybody who will talk to her, mostly right wing media. And eventually, she goes on Fox and Friends. And then the next day, Trump tweets.

SOUNDCLIP

ANCHOR: President Trump has stepped in for Gallagher, directing the Navy to move him from the brig to the barracks.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: She politicizes this. And you're saying she goes on right wing radio for a lot, but she basically compares Eddie Gallagher's fight to America's freedom.

DAN TABERSKI: Yeah. I mean, for her, the logic was always he's innocent. But the underlying logic of the whole conversation was that even if he's not innocent, does it really fucking matter? Like does it really matter if a Navy SEAL went and killed an ISIS fighter who was trying to kill him anyway? And the whole point that they're in Mosul is to kill ISIS. That's literally the point. Like even like they, you know, General Mattis said it on CBS Sunday Morning that they were in Mosul for annihilation. They were in Mosul. It wasn't about like take as many prisoners as we can and like and sign a peace treaty with ISIS. It was kill ISIS. And so he was there for that. And so the argument was just sort of like, does it really matter if the good guys crossed the line? Which, you know, on some level, it's like hugely, deeply offensive. But on another level, I don't… it's not wrong, especially when you go and look at all the things, all the ways that the military was crossing the line and being ethically grey and worse, and that it finally trickles down to Eddie Gallagher, and he's the one who's going to go to prison for something like this. I saw the logic of that argument. I could feel the truthfulness of that. I didn't necessarily agree with it, but I understood it.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Well, I think that's also the mark of good journalism, truthfully. Like nothing in life is rarely black and white or right and wrong. And I always feel like the best stories are the ones that you might have an opinion going in, and then when you're done reading or listening or watching, you're sort of not sure anymore. And you might be comfortably still on your side, but you're like, to your point, it’s like, well, what's the difference? And I think that is the mark of good journalism, because it does… then it presents to the world, well, here's life. It's not easy. You don't know the answer sometimes.

DAN TABERSKI: Hopefully, it asks a lot of the listener in that you really are sitting there sometimes and you hear somebody say something and then I don't push back on it and you're like, wait, no, you didn't… He just said… And so it does require you to sort of pay attention and follow the sort of logic of the arguments being made and not be ready with your hackles up just ready to pounce on the person you disagree with. Like it really is like, can you put your fist down for like one second?

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Yeah.

DAN TABERSKI: And just hear? It's not easy. It's not easy, but it certainly is the more fruitful way to do it. At least, making it is what makes it interesting.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Oh, for sure. So the second person that stood out is Corey Scott. So he was supposed to be testifying for the defence. Am I right about… the defence or the prosecutor?

DAN TABERSKI: Corey Scott was supposed to be testifying against Eddie Gallagher.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Right. But that's not what happened.

DAN TABERSKI: That’s not what happened.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So we're going to just play a little clip.

SOUNDCLIP

FIRST SPEAKER: You said you watched him until he asphyxiated.

SECOND SPEAKER: Yes.

FIRST SPEAKER: Asphyxiated is a combat medic that means somebody who is deprived of oxygen, doesn't it?

SECOND SPEAKER: Yes.

FIRST SPEAKER: Why do you use that word?

SECOND SPEAKER: That was what killed him.

FIRST SPEAKER: You didn't say that Chief Gallagher suffocated him, did you?

SECOND SPEAKER: No.

FIRST SPEAKER: Craig Miller suffocated him?

SECOND SPEAKER: No.

FIRST SPEAKER: Did you suffocate him?

SECOND SPEAKER: Yes.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: That is like Perry Mason came to life.

DAN TABERSKI: It's incredible. You know, you just don't get courtroom shockers like that anymore. He goes on the stand, he says, Eddie Gallagher didn't kill him, I killed him. He says, I put my thumb over the breathing tube and suffocated him that way, which is shocking. And he had never said it before in pre-trial testimony. And he went on the stand and said that, saving, essentially saving Eddie Gallagher, but also under the auspices that he wouldn't be prosecuted for anything that he said on the stand. So the idea that is what he said on the stand true or not because he's trying to save… is he trying to save Eddie Gallagher or is he telling the truth?

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Because he had immunity.

DAN TABERSKI: Yes.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Scott had immunity. And when he said that, I know you weren't there, but do you have any reports of what happened in the courtroom?

DAN TABERSKI: It's literally like a cartoon, and I really describe it that way. Like people's eyes bug out of their head. Their jaws drop. Like that's how people described it to me. It's almost incomprehensible. It just doesn't happen that way. These things are very deliberately laid out. People get on the stand, they say the thing that they're supposed to say, and then they leave. And his story had entirely changed. And so it just opened so many other questions. And he was a fascinating person because I get his moral quandary. He was in a position where he thought that his chief was going to go to prison for committing a crime that was barely a crime as far as they were concerned, and that for other reasons, because of the ethical lapses of the U.S. military, a crime that probably would have been committed anyway by the Iraqis that we were working with. And so it was the irony was almost too much. And so I get. If telling the truth or lie, I get the problem that Corey Scott was in about a sense of justice and what's appropriate punishment even if he thinks that Eddie Gallagher tried to kill him.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So do you believe Scott or do you think he was lying to save Eddie Gallagher?

DAN TABERSKI: I don't think it matters what I believe. I can just see the both. I can see both possibilities. The thing that Corey Scott ultimately says is, which is what his testimony is so crazy, his version of the story is so crazy and interesting in that he says, I'm the one who put my thumb over the breathing tube and asphyxiated the guy and killed him. But he also testifies that Eddie Gallagher did stab that detainee in the neck. It's just not what killed him.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Yeah.

DAN TABERSKI: He killed him. So it's like he's not letting Eddie Gallagher off the hook. He's saying, no, Eddie Gallagher stabbed this guy. It just wasn't murder because I'm the one who did it. I did it with my thumb. So it's just this incredible… If he was lying, there's almost a genius to it, because it really does… he got Eddie out of it without sort of implicating himself in a way. Like it's incredible. I still can't believe it.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: I mean, it really… that was my thought to, is like how smart was all of this? I don't know if there's a way to answer this. Did Scott really figure it all out on his own, or was there some way to lead him towards realizing he could do that?

DAN TABERSKI: I don't know the answer. I definitely don't want to hazard a guess or imply that he is lying. He got on the stand, swore that he's going to tell the truth, and he said what he was going to say. I've never had the opportunity to speak with Corey Scott, so I 100% give him the benefit of the doubt. But, you know, like I do know that he did visit Eddie Gallagher in the brig, and it was him and Eddie and a lawyer, and they had talked for 20 minutes, and nobody knows what was said in that meeting besides them. And I know that that was really unusual because Corey Scott was testifying for the prosecution, not for Gallagher. So for him to go in and meet with Eddie was really unusual. There are unusual circumstances for sure.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Eddie Gallagher did not testify, right, at his trial.

DAN TABERSKI: No, no, no.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: But you got a chance to talk to him.

DAN TABERSKI: I did.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Tell me about him in-person. What did you sort of get from meeting him?

DAN TABERSKI: We went down under the idea that if he decided he didn't want to talk to us on the record recording it, then we would just leave. And we met for five hours, and then the next day, next couple of days, we recorded. Him and his wife are… he's quiet and she's not. She's very smart, very bright, very aggressive. They were both good hosts, but we were talking about incredibly serious things. And I went in thinking that I was going to be aggressive in terms of like just I'm not going to go and not ask him this question in every possible way I can and try to figure out what happened.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: It struck me seeing… I mean, we can talk about the documentary in a bit, the TV doc, but there are also pictures of him, and it struck me how different Eddie Gallagher looks at home than he looks in the field.

DAN TABERSKI: Oh, well, in the field, he's wearing £50 of gear and camouflage and dusty and dirty and covered in all sorts of shit. And, you know, when I interviewed him, I interviewed him in his wife's walk in closet because it was the quietest room in the house, right, butted up next to each other. And he was wearing flip flops, board shorts and a t-shirt. So like super relaxed. It was like we were just like taking a break from the pool. So very weird. He's a quiet guy who can do incredible things for better or for worse.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So did he tell you that he nursed the kid to death in the closet?

DAN TABERSKI: He did, but that was the second interview I did. So I did two days of interviews. We talked for a day, and then we did two days of interviews. And then a few months later, no, like nine months later, I did a second interview just following up. And in that interview, he confessed to some things that he hadn't talked about before, that he didn't bring up at the trial, that nobody knew. You know, it definitely amounted to a partial confession. He said… I won't call it confessed because that admits, that suggests that what he said was absolutely true. And I can't do that either, which is what makes it confusing. But he admitted to me that, in fact, they did nurse that prisoner to death.

SOUNDCLIP

EDDIE GALLAGHER: The grain of truth in the whole thing is that that ISIS fighter was killed by us, and that nobody at that time had a problem with it. We killed that guy. Our intention was to kill him. It was to do medical scenarios on him until he died.

DAN TABERSKI: Is that nursing to death?

EDDIE GALLAGHER: We weren't taking any prisoners.

DAN TABERSKI: Why?

EDDIE GALLAGHER: We weren’t bringing any back because that wasn't our job.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: What does that mean that somebody nursed somebody to death?

DAN TABERSKI: It means when he came in, they weren't trying to save his life. They were doing medical procedures on him for practice until he died. The medical procedures included things like putting in an airway, doing a crack, lung decompression, like painful things. And so the idea is that by doing those things on him, they probably hastened the death. And they were certainly not trying to save him.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So that was like another bombshell that you have in your podcast.

DAN TABERSKI: 100%. And I couldn't believe he was saying it. And it was because the trial was over and almost a year had passed since the trial. And you start to get, you know, a little more. Different parts of the truth are more sayable than they were before. And I hope it doesn't sound like I'm protecting him or trying to make it sound like I'm pussyfooting around what he did or said. I do want to consistently acknowledge all the sort of nuances of how complicated it is to call this murder and admit to things and confess. And so it's just quite messy. But he definitely admitted that they nursed this prisoner to death on purpose. That was the goal. This prisoner was not going to leave alive.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And was their a fallout from that, from you publishing that part of the interview?

DAN TABERSKI: Yeah. The Department of Events Briefing that day, a reporter asked a question, and I believe it was the Secretary of Defence who said they were going to look into it, and they did. And then they just decided not to pursue it, which they 100% should not. Like it's just not… for me, the big takeaway, aside from Eddie Gallagher, was all the things that the military did that were ethically grey. And that made and for me was the point of the whole project in the end. I wasn't sure that this was going to be it, but it's certainly what we found out, that they made it incredibly hard for the people doing the fighting to make ethical decisions because of all the ethics. We were working with documented war criminals. We were working with the Iraqi ERD, which is basically their anti-terrorism force. And by law, we are not allowed to fight with them because they are war criminals. They torture. And they used a loophole and we did it anyway. And not only were we working with them to clear Mosul, they were sharing a building with the ERD in Mosul, where several SEALS said they could hear the Iraqis torturing ISIS fighters through the walls at night. And so we had changed the rules of engagement. General Mattis went on the news, and he said…

SOUNDCLIP

JAMES MATTIS: I want to emphasize here, there has been no change to our rules of engagement, and there has been no change to our continued extraordinary efforts to avoid innocent civilian casualties.

DAN TABERSKI: We are not changing the rules of engagement in Mosul, but civilian casualties went up in Mosul. And when we heard the unredacted courtroom audio, the guy who was running the task force gets up on stand and he's like, when Mattis took over, the rules of engagement changed dramatically.

SOUNDCLIP

FIRST SPEAKER: When General Mattis took over as the secretary of defence, we saw a significant change in the ROE.

SECOND SPEAKER: You were engaged in some form of combat on a daily basis with U.S. forces. Is that right, sir?

FIRST SPEAKER: That’s correct.

SECOND SPEAKER: Despite serving as a supporting… in a supporting role.

FIRST SPEAKER: Absolutely.

DAN TABERSKI: And so all these things that they did that they weren't even supposed to be fighting. They weren't even supposed to be fighting. Americans think that they're advising, and every day, they get up and they go into combat. And so it just created this atmosphere where nobody was sure. It seemed like nobody was sure what the right decisions were anymore. From what we can understand, they didn't have a process for taking prisoners. Like there really was no setup for it because they weren't really supposed to be fighting anyway. And so they're there, they have a prisoner, there's no HVAC coming in, there's no helicopter. Like and so even all the sort of systems, all the systems that are set up to sort of deal with these situations, they didn't really apply. And so it makes total sense that the line was crossed. But I placed that on us. I placed that on the military. Eddie Gallagher is responsible, but he's not the only one.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Perfect segue into the title, and the whole theme of it is the line. As you call it, the curvy line, the changing line. Did you sort of realize going in that it was really going to be about the line? Or how did that sort of come to you that in the end, what you were talking about was the line and whatever emphasis or wherever you want to say that line is, whether it's ethical or physical or emotional.

DAN TABERSKI: We were going to tell the story of Eddie Gallagher and what happened in that trial. Alongside with that, we were going to tell the story of the Navy SEALS over the last 20 years in the war on terror, and what fighting in the last 20 years has done to the Navy SEALS on an individual level. So we were going to sort of weave those two stories in together. The question I was trying to answer in my head broadly was that I really didn't understand the reaction to this trial as it was happening. And people were trying to say he was innocent or guilty. And everybody goes in the news and is like picking a side about how they feel about Eddie Gallagher and how he’s a monster. And the sides were Eddie Gallagher is a monster. Eddie Gallagher is 100% a monster. He 100% killed that guy, that kid, and it's 100% his fault, and we're better than that, and he needs to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. And the other side was it doesn't matter if he killed this guy. Like it doesn't matter if we crossed the line. We’re the good guys. And I didn't understand. And to me, both sides were stupid. Like no side acknowledged any sort of nuance. Pinning it all on Eddie Gallagher does not acknowledge the enormous system that Eddie Gallagher is working in from 18 on that he's been funneling through his entire life, about how we setup men who have a specific type of quality, who have no limits, who won't stop. And we train them and we give them guns, and we put them in these situations, and we send them back and we send them back and we send them back. Mosul was Eddie's eighth deployment. People aren't supposed to be doing that. The record in Vietnam was five deployments, and that was like a big deal. And SEALS are doing eight, nine, 10, like double digit deployments, and it's messing with their ability to tell right from wrong. It's messing with their ability to come home and lead normal lives.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Well, can you actually talk more about that?

DAN TABERSKI: Yeah. I mean, one of the interesting things about this project is not just Eddie Gallagher himself, it's the Navy SEALS in general. And to be able to look back after 20 years of fighting the war on terror, where they're using Navy SEALS in a very different way, and they're using them way more than they ever thought they would or were supposed to, and they don't have nearly enough. And there's all this pressure on them for them to keep deploying from the military, from their country, but also from themselves because they feel responsibility. And it's incredibly taxing on the brains, on the minds and on the hearts of the people doing that fighting. You know, like suicide rates are I think triple among special operators, are triple what they are in the public at large. I mean, and that alone, like it's like they're in a system that we set up. They're there for us. Whether or not you agree with the military or not, you're a conscientious objector or not, like it doesn't matter what you think, they are there for us. And the amount of attention that we pay is dwindling because they're not really supposed to be in fighting. They're just doing advise and consent. And so people aren't really even watching what's happening to these guys. Incredible amounts of suicide, PTSD. They've sort of bundled up all the symptoms and they call it operator syndrome now for the specific things that SEALS and other special operators are experiencing. And so it's really hard, probably impossible to ever be able to point to, here's this guy accused of murder, on one hand, here's all these things that SEALS are going through that is affecting their mental health. You can't do cause and effect, and I'm aware of that. But you can put those two things together and let it. Colour your view of Eddie Gallagher and what you think he may or may not have done. You know, just the fact that, I mean, I think he had 18 traumatic brain injuries.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: 18.

DAN TABERSKI: Yeah. And so just from being a Navy SEAL. Like these guys are… they're going through it. And traumatic brain injury does all sorts of things to impulse control and depression and anxiety and trauma. And so no. Can I say that Eddie Gallagher himself, that that's the reason he may or may not have done anything? No. But just because there's no cause and effect, you have to look at those things together and acknowledge that that might be what's going on. And it's our responsibility.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: I hear you. I mean, but you yourself faced criticism for not being sure enough of what side of the line you were on, like that comment you make when you met, I think it's Dan, right? And he talks about you’re sheep, sheepdogs.

SOUNDCLIP

DAN: I’m a sheepdog. I'm a sheepdog. I'm a sheepdog. I’m like, I'm not. You know, basically, a sheep dog protect sheep. And he hangs out with sheep and he looks like sheep and he waits to get attacked. Fuck that. I'm a fucking lion. I'm hunting wolves. I'm not waiting for wolves to hunt me. As a matter of fact, I'm coming to the hill to you, right? And every now and then, I'll eat a sheepdog. And I'll eat a fucking lamb if it gets in my way. That's been my mentality. I'm trying to tone it down, you know, what I say.

DAN TABERSKI: Dan is absolutely terrifying and also kind of a good hang, which is how I would describe a lot of the SEALS.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And you said it's terrifying, but kind of a good hang.

DAN TABERSKI: Yeah.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And so and that was a little shocking as a listener to hear, right? It’s like, oh! But I'm curious, like you face some criticism for that. How did you feel about that?

DAN TABERSKI: It's just honest. It's his truth. It's like, I mean, if I met them and they were all monsters, I would have said, That's Dan, he's a monster. He sounds like a monster, and he really is, but I didn't. I met these people and they were interesting and open to being talked about in a way that didn't just frame them as heroes. Like really open to being asked questions. Like nobody ever really asks them this stuff I was asking. Like what is the actual emotional experience of doing what you do? Like how does it work? Like that was my experience and I wanted to relay that. I don't believe that people… that you would go and sit down with these people and call them a monster to their face and walk out. Like why would you waste time? Why would you waste that opportunity to really get insight into something that you don't understand? And so that's what was important to me. And yeah, some people had a problem with that. The thing about responding to criticism is that you kind of don't have to. Like I mean, I'm not tweeting. Like I'm not tweeting out this story. I'm doing a long considered in-depth, you know, dozens and dozens of dozens of interviews, months and months of writing. And so like by the time it goes out, like I'm never surprised if you get a little criticism. And it's always… the criticism always comes in the form of a tweet, right? Like it's always somebody… like people are really desperate for you to think in an unnuanced way because that is the way battles get fought on social media. And so, you know, doing a four-hour audio documentary about this is just something different. And so yeah, I get that people were bummed that it didn't read like a tweet. But like, you know what I mean? That's the kind of stuff I love. And the more I can do that, like the more I'll do it. Like that is the point.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: It's reminding me of your other work, Missing Richard Simmons.

DAN TABERSKI: Yeah, speaking of criticism.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And at the end, how you yourself have to ask your question, did I cross a line? Because he doesn't want me looking for him.

DAN TABERSKI: Yeah, totally. 100%. And I think that was instructive for me that my first big independent podcast was incredibly journalistically rigorous. Editors, producers, fact checkers, our eyes were wide open in terms of understanding where our line was and what we weren't going to… how far we were going to go and where we thought we had the ability to ask questions. And so I was comfortable in that space of…

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Being uncomfortable.

DAN TABERSKI: Of being uncomfortable. Like I think the line, interesting things happen near the line.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Yeah.

DAN TABERSKI: That's where so much of the world happens. It's like at the line. It's like nobody's doing exactly the thing you think they're doing. And everybody's always sort of cutting corners, right? This is where our heads sort of linger because we can't figure it out. And so I like dealing in that space. I think it's really fruitful and interesting. And if you do it open hearted, which I think is really important. It's sort of a squishy word for journalism, which is fact based. But you really just have to be open to like hearing people's experience and not putting them into categories before you talk to them, and just like just being present for them and like trying to figure something out together. And they agreed to sit down and answer any question you want to ask them, and that's an incredible… 10% of making these projects is just sitting in the joy of that and being like, you're really going to answer any question I want, Eddie Gallagher? Like I can ask you if you did it and you're going to tell me the answer. And I get to like look at you and be like, is he telling the truth or not? And like it's amazing. And so I like to make people aware of that space instead of just like wagging my finger at people. Like other people can wag their finger at people. I don't need to do that.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: That's the joy of podcasting, isn't it? Because that joy that you bring shows up.

DAN TABERSKI: Oh, I'm so glad.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: It’s so nice. It's so nice.

DAN TABERSKI: Nobody's luckier than me. I love it. I love it.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: The other thing that shows up is your humour. And it's also kind of on the line because there's times like in 9:12, you brought humour to something that could have killed the humour.

DAN TABERSKI: Yeah.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So how do you think about humour when you're telling these stories?

DAN TABERSKI: Humour is how I… It's just my lens. And so I think what people respond to, well, I think what I respond to in other people's work is just when I'm like, oh, that person is being themselves. Like, you know, authenticity is a word that gets used a lot, but I like when people are being themselves. And some people are like straight ahead, what are the facts? And some people aren't. And I think that there's… so I think the authenticity part is part of it. I also think, excuse me, I also think humour is… The reason things are funny is because they tend to be true. And it's a surprising truth. It's a different way of pointing out truths in a way that sort of jars you into listening instead of just like, yeah, I get the humdrum. Like A B C D, here's the truth. Like humour is just full of truth, and I just think it's how I communicate. And it's also not how people… like even the worst possible situation, 911. Even on 911, like my friend's husband died. Like we were looking for him for two days. And this sounds so ghoulish to say, and I don't mean to be disrespectful, but we were making constant jokes because we were just so mortified at the world and our lives and the person we loved and what is happening. And so it's just how people deal with things. And so I think even just acknowledging that, that like that he was a part of even the worst situations, it makes it all feel more human to me.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So in the podcast, you say that you're not a true crime guy. But so many of your podcasts are about crime, including The Line. So if you're not a true crime guy, what are you?

DAN TABERSKI: I don't know because I don't listen to true crime. Like I say, I approach projects only if I don't know how I feel about it. The narratives of true crime rarely shake down in a way that I'm left feeling ambiguous. Like if it's a serial killer, like for me, there's no… there's very little mystery to that. For me, it's just like there's not a lot I want to know. He's crazy. I don't mean that to sound dismissive, it's just not where my head wants to ask more questions. It doesn't grab me. And so I'm not. I'm not into true crime as a genre in that sense. But that doesn't mean my Venn diagram doesn't overlap with where people are doing the wrong thing and asking what's right. And it certainly overlaps with the subject matter of true crime for sure. But I don't know. It seems to bother people that I don't like… that I don't like calling it true crime. I guess I don't care, but like I just don't. I rarely even call it journalism, which is weird.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: What do you call it?

DAN TABERSKI: I call it art. I know I'm going to sound stupid now, but like these are things you shouldn't say out loud. These are the things you say quietly to your computer just when you’re ready to get here. But I think what we're doing is journalism times 10, 100%, but I think it's journalism in service of art. It's journalism in order to see… by talking to real people and finding the truth in these situations, you can sort of present a different perspective and view about what I see in the world. And journalism is part, is a tool for that.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Well, Dan, I really enjoy listening to your perspective, and it was so nice to have you on the show. Thanks for joining us.

DAN TABERSKI: Oh, it's my pleasure, for real. I'm happy to talk about this stuff. I enjoy it.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: You've been listening to Crime Story from CBC Podcasts. We drop a new episode every Monday. You can get our next episode a week early on CBC Podcasts’ YouTube channel or by subscribing to the CBC Podcasts’ true crime channel on Apple Podcasts. In addition to Early Access, subscribers to our true crime channel also listen ad free. Crime Story is written and hosted by me, Kathleen Goldhar. Our producers are Alexis Green and Sarah Claydon. Sound design by Julia Wittman. Our senior producer is Geoff Turner. Our video producer is Evan Aagaard, and our YouTube producer is Jon Lee. Executive producers are Cesil Fernandes and Chris Oke. Tanya Springer is the senior manager of CBC Podcasts, and Arif Noorani is the director of CBC Podcasts.

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Transcript: Crime Story, Episode 25

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