Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller’s defense team has criticized military officials for leaking case documents ahead of an Oct. 14 trial by special court-martial, saying that the leak is designed to harm Scheller’s reputation and distract people from his calls for accountability for senior leadership’s disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal.
Earlier today, Task and Purpose published a story based on leaked documents that purport to show Scheller’s support for the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riots.
Scheller’s Jan. 6 comments do not come from his public videos or statements made on his social media, but rather an alleged conversation he had with an unnamed executive officer, according to the Task and Purpose story.
One of Scheller’s attorneys, Timothy Parlatore, told The Epoch Times that the alleged conversation was taken out of context. Scheller was only commenting on how the Jan. 6 situation could have been worse, according to Parlatore.
Parlatore said the leaked legal documents are designed to “hurt Lt. Col Scheller” ahead of his trial. The U.S. Marine faces charges of contempt toward officials, disrespect toward superior commissioned officers, willfully disobeying a superior commissioned officer, dereliction in the performance of duties, failure to obey order or regulation, and conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.
“It’s something I’ve seen plenty of times in other cases. When the public narrative isn’t going towards the government’s preferred narrative, they have a tendency to selectively leak documents to try to change that narrative,” Parlatore said, adding that the documents may not have come from the prosecution, but from other military officials.
Along with facing criticism for leaving behind Americans, allies, and billions of dollars of weapons, senior officials have also come under fire in recent weeks for making false and misleading statements about a botched Aug. 29 drone strike in Kabul that killed innocent Afghan civilians.
By Ken Silva
