The US Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps at GIMO last Tuesday convicted former Deputy White House Counsel Pat Philbin of seditious conspiracy and sentenced him to death at the conclusion of a 6-hour tribunal during which Philbin told jurors he was “not guilty…not guilty with an explanation” of allegedly betraying President Donald J. Trump.
As reported in January, Philbin was drunk off his gourd when JAG investigators arrested him outside a D.C. saloon on New Year’s Eve. A criminal affidavit alleged that Philbin, while serving under President Trump from 2019 to 2021, had leaked Trump’s 2020 campaign agenda to Biden’s team and the DNC—though the two were inextricably intertwined. He also stood accused of illicitly furnishing Team Biden with classified correspondence between President Trump and foreign leaders.
Following his arrest, he was arraigned at JAG’s Pensacola offices, then brought to GITMO to await trial. A seasoned lawyer, Philbin told JAG he would represent himself but warned opposing counsel he would not fall prey to JAG’s “trickery and traps.”
The tribunal began with Lead Special Trial Counsel Rear Admiral Johnathon Stephens seating the three decorated Marine Corps officers JAG had empaneled to hear the case. Opening statements were brief. Adm. Stephens said the government had substantive evidence proving Philbin was a traitor; Philbin said his “mistakes” were a byproduct of a chronic, incurable disease that impaired his judgment. He told the panelists he was a raging yet functional alcoholic whose frequent use of booze and benzodiazepines induced “blackouts.”
“I may or may not have done the crimes I’m accused of. If I did, I have no memory of it. I have a disease. If I committed offenses, and again I can’t say if I did or didn’t, I wasn’t motivated by politics or money. The CDC recognizes alcoholism and drug use as a chronic disease that produces damage in the brain, Philbin said in his opening statement.
Addressing the panel, Adm. Stephens stipulated Philbin’s drug and alcohol use. He showed the panel a toxicology report based on a breathalyzer and blood test. At the time of his arrest, Philbin’s BAC was 0.42%, a level that shows extreme intoxication. The tox screen showed trace amounts of zolpidem, the generic name for the sleep aid Ambien, in his blood.
The Admiral told the panel that although Philbin dabbled in drugs and alcohol, he was not the incurable addict he claimed to be. Philbin, Adm. Stephens noted, never displayed classic withdrawal symptoms while confined to a Camp Delta cell. To prove his point, he showed the panel a video of very relaxed Philbin reading a copy of author Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged while lying in his bunk.
“Were Mr. Philbin truly addicted—where are his ‘shakes’? Why isn’t he sweating profusely? Why isn’t he clawing at the walls? Yes, he did drugs and alcohol, but not to the extent he’s telling this tribunal. He’d like you to believe he was always ‘blacked-out,’ but answer this: If you were as thwacked out on drugs and inebriated, would you have the mental and physical clarity, the alacrity, to sneak into the Oval Office, take out a cell phone, open drawers of the Resolute Desk, and snap photographs of President Trump’s private letters? These aren’t actions of an addict; it’s the behavior of a traitor,” Adm. Stephens said.
Philbin raised an objection. “I am a Yale and Harvard University graduate. I’ve served the government since the Bush administration. Obviously, I know the White House has cameras everywhere, even in the Oval Office. This Admiral Stephens, if he’s really an admiral, just proves my point: If I were sober, really, now, would I have walked into the Oval Office at 2:00 a.m.? Of course not—I was messed up, a lucid sleepwalker, due to alcohol and drugs.”
“Mr. Philbin didn’t live at the White House,” Adm. Stephens argued. “He lived in Bowling Green, Maryland, 139 miles from D.C. And he’d have you believe he was so fucked up, pardon my language, that he, in a drug and alcohol stupor, somehow drove all that distance to snap photos of confidential info and was unaware of it all.”
There were several hours of back and forth, with both sides calling experts to testify about alcohol dependency, but, in the end, the panel ruled in JAG’s favor, especially after the defense’s most educated witness, a Red Cross doctor, admitted under oath that a severely stuporous person would be too clumsy and uncoordinated to steal or photograph documents.
“I guess they’d lack coordination—motor skills to do that,” the doctor conceded.
The panel of officers said the traitor Philbin should die for his crimes, and Admiral Stephens agreed.
“Not fair,” Philbin said on hearing the verdict. “I need therapy, and you’re sentencing me to death? Fucking monsters. I’m not guilty…alcohol is the reason.”
Mr. Philbin is scheduled to hang to death on April 1.