Thanks Pugs.
I think Miles 58 has it about right. Admiral says he knew nothing about it until receiving the cc letter? If so. IF SO, then that was indeed a lapse on Crozier's part. But we do not know the politics and personalities involved.
Overall, it appears to me, more and more, that Crozier was sandbagged by someone in COC above him, and the letter was NOT sent to the rag by him. It also appears it WAS sent by him through normally or reasonably secure channels for non-classified communications.
Las,
The letter was sent over open email for two reasons. Crozier wanted it released where it might do some good. He did not want to put anyone else's career on the line for releasing official communication or worse yet, classified information. For him to release what amounted to a readiness report was punishable under UCMJ. To release even a report classified as confidential for anyone else was punishable under UCMJ. He wrote a clean email knowing that at least one of the people on the CC list would see to it that it was made public. He did it knowing it would take down some of the people who were letting this happen and that he was not going down alone. That alone will guarantee he never commands more than a desk again. While he did the right thing by his ship, his crew and the country, he also exposed the next two up line in his CoC. Crozier was not "sandbagged. He was in a no win situation and he chose the only honorable course through it. Clearly the Admiral aboard could have prevented this. Clearly SecNav could have prevented this. Clearly SecDOD could have prevented this. Each of those people made their decisions knowing that men would die. Highly trained men in which the country had invested enormous amounts of training and money reaching down into the lower enlisted ranks aboard. I think it is very obvious that he was willing to sacrifice his career and command for a last ditch attempt at not throwing those lives and that investment away.
