SAN DIEGO — Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly resigned Tuesday, a day after audio from his address to the crew of the San Diego-based carrier Theodore Roosevelt leaked to the media.
“This morning I accepted Secretary Modly’s resignation,” Defense Secretary Mark Esper said in a statement. “He resigned on his own accord, putting the Navy and the Sailors above self so that the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt, and the Navy as an institution, can move forward.”
In his speech Monday, Modly called the ship’s former commander, Capt. Brett Crozier, whom he fired Thursday, “too naive or too stupid” for command.
Esper said that acting Army Undersecretary James McPherson would succeed Modly. President Donald Trump’s permanent nominee for the job — Kenneth Braithwaite, currently ambassador to Norway — has yet to be confirmed by the Senate.
Modly’s resignation caps a whirlwind week for the Navy that saw its response to the COVID-19 scrutinized heavily after Crozier’s letter predicted dire outcomes for his crew if the Navy did not act to evacuate most of them from the ship.
An outbreak of COVID-19 on the ship sidelined the San Diego-based carrier in Guam on March 26. As of Tuesday, the Navy reported that 230 Theodore Roosevelt sailors have tested positive for the virus.
Modly fired Crozier two days after his letter was first published by the San Francisco Chronicle. Although Modly said he did not know whether Crozier leaked the letter, he said that by sending it to more than 20 people via unclassified email, the ship captain didn’t do enough to ensure it wouldn’t leak and therefore lost his confidence to remain in command.
Crozier left the ship Friday to hearty cheers from hundreds of sailors who chanted his name as he waved goodbye.
Modly flew almost 8,000 miles from Washington, D.C., to the Western Pacific island and addressed the crew via the ship’s 1MC loudspeaker system Monday.
In a profane, meandering 15-minute speech, the acting secretary chastised the crew for cheering Crozier on his way out. He also blamed China for the novel coronavirus and lamented that Crozier’s actions resulted in negative press coverage and controversy in Washington.
Modly initially stood by his comments in an early statement, saying they were from his heart, but he later apologized Monday for what he said about Crozier.
After Modly’s remarks were widely reported, several Democratic lawmakers called for his resignation or firing, and Trump suggested he might intervene in the case.
After Modly resigned Tuesday, he published a farewell memo to the fleet via the Navy’s unclassified message system. In it he took responsibility for bringing negative attention to the service by his “poor use of words.”
“You are justified in being angry with me about that,” Modly wrote. “When I walked on the quarterdeck of the (Theodore Roosevelt) I lost situational awareness and decided to speak with them as if I was their commander, or their shipmate, rather than their Secretary. They deserved better …” McPherson, who is stepping in for Modly, is a retired two-star admiral. A San Diego native, he graduated from San Diego State University and the University of San Diego. He retired from the Navy in 2006 as the service’s top lawyer.
Trump nominated him for his current post in the Army in December.
Modly’s tenure as acting secretary ends as it began — mired in controversy.
