The Department of Justice is looking to get a judge's ruling overturned that dismissed the court-martial sentence of ex-Staff Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, a former U.S. service member who abandoned his post in Afghanistan in 2009.
Prosecutors argued in recent court filings that Bergdahl's initial conviction, which included being dishonorably discharged, demoted in rank, and a fine of $10,000, should be reinstated after Judge Reggie Walton determined in July that the previous judge who oversaw his conviction failed to disclose an apparent conflict of interest.
Judge Jeffrey Nance, who handed down Bergdahl’s conviction in November 2017, had applied to become a federal immigration judge and failed to disclose it. Walton determined that the then-undisclosed application could create an appearance of possible bias because then-President Donald Trump was heavily critical of Bergdahl publicly.
Prosecutors argued that Bergdahl's decision to plead guilty and his requested sentence did not comport with their criticism of Nance's decision to fulfill them. They also criticized Walton's reference to a Guantanamo Bay case in which the military judge failed to disclose his application for a civilian immigration judicial post in his decision to throw out Bergdahl's sentence.
Bergdahl's representation has also sought to get Walton to reconsider a previous ruling that there was no unlawful command influence by Trump.
"At the moment, he stands convicted in the court of public opinion, out of the mouth of a President of the United States, as a traitor—the uniquely infamous category that includes Tokyo Rose, Axis Sally, and a handful of other turncoats over the course of American history," Bergdahl's lawyers said in the new filing. "This is tremendously unfair."
In 2021, his conviction was upheld by the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. A year later, he filed a lawsuit in civilian court alleging he was denied a fair trial by Nance. He also said that Trump and the late Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain had improperly influenced the case.
Bergdahl, then a member of the 1st Battalion, 501st Regiment, walked away from his post in Afghanistan in 2009 and was later captured by the Taliban. Several U.S. service members were wounded searching for Bergdahl, who said he was trying to get outside his post to report what he believed to be poor leadership within his unit when he was abducted.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
He was freed in a prisoner swap in May 2014 involving the release of five Taliban leaders held by the United States in a deal that drew heavy criticism from Republicans. All five of the so-called Taliban Five were named to key roles in the Taliban’s new government following the U.S. military withdrawal.
Bergdahl's parents appeared at the White House alongside then-President Barack Obama in the Rose Garden on May 31, 2014, in which the president announced that Bergdahl had been recovered. The appearance of Bergdahl's father, Bob, who at the time sported a thick bushy beard, shocked some viewers. Bob explained in interviews that he had begun growing the beard since his son was kidnapped as part of a wider attempt to understand the Taliban and Afghanistan.