WASHINGTON — Capt. Brett E. Crozier ought to be restored to command of the plane provider Theodore Roosevelt, the Navy’s prime officers really helpful on Friday.
However Protection Secretary Mark T. Esper, who was briefed on the suggestions, has requested for extra time to think about whether or not to log out on the reinstatement of the captain of the nuclear-powered provider.
Mr. Esper acquired the advice on Friday that Captain Crozier be reinstated from the chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Michael M. Gilday, and the performing Navy secretary, James McPherson. Protection Division officers mentioned earlier that they anticipated to announce the outcomes of the Navy’s investigation into the matter on Friday afternoon.
Mr. Esper’s choice to carry up the investigation has shocked Navy officers, who believed that the protection secretary would go away the method within the palms of the navy chain of command.
After he was fired by a political appointee of President Trump, the saga took on new that means. A video of a whole lot of cheering sailors yelling “Captain Crozier!” as he departed the aircraft carrier, black backpack on his shoulder, went viral. The maneuverings afterward of the acting Navy secretary at the time, Thomas B. Modly, to right a crisis in the Navy only deepened public interest.
Now, after a review of the episodes of the last month, it is Mr. Modly who is out of his job. Meanwhile, Admiral Gilday and Mr. Modly’s successor, Mr. McPherson, pushed for the reinstatement of Captain Crozier during a meeting on Friday with Mr. Esper.
Admiral Gilday and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had both advised Mr. Modly not to remove Captain Crozier before an investigation into events aboard the Roosevelt was complete. But Mr. Modly feared that Mr. Trump wanted Captain Crozier fired, according to his acquaintances, and dismissed the captain.
But the president’s position softened as videos of crew members extolling their captain made their way around social media. Still, it was unclear exactly where the president now stands on the reinstatement of Captain Crozier, and Mr. Esper’s decision not to immediately accept the recommendation that the captain be reinstated could reflect a fear of getting on the wrong side of his boss, officials said.
Admiral Gilday and James McPherson, the acting Navy secretary who succeeded Mr. Modly after he resigned, reached agreement late last week that the events leading to Captain Crozier’s letter pleading for help showed that he should not have been removed, officials said. They briefed General Milley on their findings on Tuesday. But they did not publicly disclose their decision until after meeting with Mr. Esper on Friday.
The captain, who friends say is feeling better after he himself contracted the coronavirus, is in isolation in the distinguished visitors quarter on a Navy base in Guam. He is awaiting another test to confirm that he no longer has the virus, his friend said.
On April 2, when Captain Crozier walked off the gangway of the Roosevelt in Guam, where the ship is docked, some 114 Roosevelt sailors had tested positive for the coronavirus. Now, a little over three weeks later, that number stands at 840, or 17 percent of a crew of just under 5,000. On Thursday, the Navy said that it had completed testing on all 4,938 crew members. Of the total cases, 88 sailors have recovered and 4,234 have moved ashore, the Navy said. Four sailors are in the hospital with the disease.
The “core crew,” those left behind on the Roosevelt to clean and prepare the ship for those on Guam, is set to be swapped out by the end of the month. The Roosevelt is then expected to undertake sea trials, allowing the fighter-jet wing aboard to requalify for aircraft carrier landings at sea before continuing on its deployment.
But that plan has run into its own set of complications, as some of those crew members, housed in local hotels and believed to have not contracted the virus, have tested positive in recent days. A lack of space for these patients has prompted some of the crew to be moved into a warehouse on the naval base in what health care providers have deemed the “sailor shuffle.”
And on Friday, Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said that a crew member aboard the Kidd, a destroyer deployed to the Caribbean, had tested positive for the virus, marking the second time a deployed Navy ship had been stricken with the illness. In a statement, the Navy said that at least 17 other sailors had also tested positive.