So the official story is Navy Secretary Spencer was fired for secretly promising Trump to do exactly what Trump wanted? Does that make any sense at all?

— Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) November 25, 2019

So many problems with the official story, like why would Spencer get up at the Halifax Forum and announce he was not going to follow Trump’s Tweet-order if he was secretly promising Trump to follow it? Why take such a public, self-righteous stance? Doesn’t add up.

— Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) November 25, 2019

And then we are supposed to believe that Esper took a principled stance against a secret deal to let Gallagher keep his Trident pin, only to then let him keep it? Doesn’t add up.

— Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) November 25, 2019

The White House doesn’t have any credibility, so it tells Esper to put out this convoluted Spencer story that doesn’t add up and then Trump contradicts it by tweet moments later, completely undermining Esper’s credibility. What a mess.

— Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) November 25, 2019