WASHINGTON >> President Donald Trump’s tweets declaring transgender people unwelcome in his military have plunged the Pentagon into a legal and moral quagmire.

A flurry of meetings has taken place in recent days, the start of an effort to devise a new policy. The result could be hundreds of service members being discharged.

Adm. Paul Zukunft, the Coast Guard commandant, says a team of military lawyers has been pulled together to deal with the matter. These lawyers are working with the White House to flush out some of the issues. They’re bolstered by a Pentagon working group that had initially been set up to advance the implementation of the Obama administration’s year-old repeal of a transgender ban.

Now, they must deal with whatever new post-tweet policy emerges.