Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who walked off a U.S. military outpost, was sentenced to a dishonorable discharge but will avoid prison time. Trump tweeted that “The decision on Sergeant Bergdahl is a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military.”
Prosecutors had requested a 14-year prison term following a week of emotional testimony from the survivors who were wounded during missions to find Bergdahl after he left the base. Bergdahl’s defense team had asked for no prison time. Bergdahl faced up to life in prison for desertion and misbehavior before the enemy.
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Trump tweeted Friday that Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s sentence– a dishonorable discharge, but no prison time for leaving his post in June 2009 — was a “complete and total disgrace.”
More than eight years after Bergdahl walked off his base in Afghanistan — and unwittingly into the clutches of the Taliban — Bergdahl walked out of a North Carolina courtroom a free man Friday. Bergdahl, who pleaded guilty to endangering his comrades, was fined, reduced in rank to E1 and dishonorably discharged — but he received no prison time.
“The decision on Sergeant Bergdahl is a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military,” Trump wrote.
As part of the sentence, Bergdahl will forfeit his pay of $1000 per month for ten months. As a consequence of his dishonorable discharge, Bergdahl will lose all benefits, including medical care, afforded to military veterans. His rank will be reduced from sergeant to private.
Bergdahl pleaded guilty in October to charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy and had faced a maximum life sentence.
Bergdahl’s case sparked ferocious debate over his actions and the controversial prisoner exchange that led to his release in 2014, challenging the military’s bedrock principle of never leaving a soldier behind.
It also was overshadowed by President Trump’s accusation that Bergdahl is a traitor who should be executed.
Bergdahl’s defense seized on those remarks, arguing they compromised his right to a fair hearing. Eugene Fidell, Bergdahl’s lead attorney, indicated before Trump’s tweet that the president’s pattern of incendiary remarks are grounds for an appellate court to dismiss the sentence entirely.
Fidell said in a written statement that Bergdahl is grateful to those who searched for him during his captivity and to those who helped secure his release. He also excoriated Trump for what he called an “unprincipled effort to stoke a lynchmob atmosphere” during the presidential campaign.
“Every American,” Fidell’s statement says, “should be offended by his assault on the fair administration of justice and disdain for basic constitional rights.”
Bergdahl’s legal team intends to pursue the military’s Prisoner of War Medal for him.
Former President Barack Obama was criticized for holding a Rose Garden ceremony to celebrate Bergdahl’s return even as details of the soldier’s voluntary abandonment had begun to circulate.
Trump said on the campaign trail that Bergdahl was a “dirty, rotten traitor” who should be executed.
Bergdahl walked away from his combat outpost just before midnight June 29, 2009, in what an Army investigation determined was an attempt to cause a crisis and draw attention to concerns that Bergdahl had about his leaders.
While Bergdahl and his lawyers have said it was a decision he later regretted, prosecutor Maj. Justin Oshana said Thursday that “it wasn’t a mistake, it was a crime.”
Bergdahl was captured within hours by armed Taliban fighters on motorcycles and turned over to the Haqqani network, a group in Pakistan that tortured him on and off for years. His release was secured as part of a controversial prisoner exchange initiated by the Obama administration in 2014, in which five Taliban militants were swapped for the U.S. soldier.
Bergdahl’s attorneys maintained that psychological conditions, which according to expert testimony impair his reasoning skills and existed before his military service, led to Bergdahl’s fateful actions and that he should be granted leniency. Additionally, five years of brutal captivity was sufficient punishment, his attorneys said.
They did not dispute their client committed serious offenses.
The prosecution has said Bergdahl’s decisions contributed to grim injuries as the war effort in eastern Afghanistan ground to halt so that thousands of U.S. and Afghan troops, charged with rolling back Taliban influence and securing polling stations for upcoming elections, could instead look for Bergdahl. But the trail quickly grew cold. Later they would learn he had been spirited away to Pakistan.
James Hatch, a former Navy SEAL, said in court that he was shot in the leg during a rescue mission and saw a militant kill a military working dog. Shannon Allen, the wife of former soldier Mark Allen, said her husband was shot in the head while looking for Bergdahl. Allen is now almost totally paralyzed and cannot talk, walk or care for himself, she said in emotional testimony for the prosecution.