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Bowe Bergdahl, Called a ‘Traitor’ by President Trump, Pleads Guilty Bowe Bergdahl, Called a ‘Traitor’ by President Trump, Pleads Guilty
(about 3 hours later)
FORT BRAGG, N.C. — Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who walked off his base in Afghanistan in 2009, setting off a military manhunt and political furor, pleaded guilty to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy on Monday before a military judge in Fort Bragg, N.C. FORT BRAGG, N.C. — Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who walked off his base in eastern Afghanistan in 2009, setting off a huge military manhunt and a political furor, pleaded guilty on Monday to desertion and to endangering the American troops sent to search for him.
Sergeant Bergdahl, 31, was held captive by the Taliban for five years before the Obama administration traded him in 2014 for five Taliban detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The guilty pleas by Sergeant Bergdahl, a 31-year-old Idaho native now stationed at an Army base in San Antonio, Tex., were not part of any deal with prosecutors.
He was charged with desertion, which carries a potential five-year sentence, and with misbehavior — essentially, endangering the troops who were sent to search for him — which carries a potential life sentence. It will now be up to an Army judge here at Fort Bragg to decide the sergeant’s punishment, following testimony at a hearing that is expected to begin as soon as next week. The desertion charge carries a potential five-year sentence, and the charge of endangering troops — formally known as misbehavior before the enemy — carries a potential life sentence.
The negotiations for his release became a presidential campaign issue and an attacking point for Republican critics of President Obama’s foreign policy. Last year, as a candidate, Donald J. Trump repeatedly called the sergeant a “traitor” and called for him to be executed. In a military courtroom here on Monday morning, Sergeant Bergdahl stood before the judge, Col. Jeffery A. Nance, and described his actions as inexcusable.
Sergeant Bergdahl had a different explanation, telling the Army’s chief investigator, Maj. Gen. Kenneth Dahl, that he decided to leave his base so he could walk to a larger base about 18 miles away in order to report what he felt were leadership problems in his own unit. “You just walked away?” Colonel Nance asked him.
General Dahl, whose investigation formed the basis of the military’s case against Sergeant Bergdahl, later testified that jailing him would be “inappropriate,” suggesting that the sergeant had been delusional and that he had never intended to desert. “Yes, sir,” Sergeant Bergdahl replied. “Unfortunately, I got lost in my first 20 minutes.”
Army prosecutors have argued that Sergeant Bergdahl’s departure forced the military to drastically alter its operations during the manhunt. They also say that two soldiers and a Navy SEAL suffered serious wounds searching for the sergeant in two separate operations. Sergeant Bergdahl has previously said that he had intended to walk from his unit’s outpost to a larger base about 18 miles away, in order to report what he felt were leadership problems in his unit. He said he wanted to cause a major stir, to ensure that he received an audience with a high-ranking officer.
Defense lawyers have said those injuries cannot be directly tied to Sergeant Bergdahl. Military investigators later found grave faults with the leadership and planning of one mission, they say, adding that evidence indicates that the other mission “targeted a well-known enemy combatant” and thus had a purpose apart from rescuing the sergeant. But he told Judge Nance on Monday that he never meant to set off the huge manhunt that followed his disappearance.
Defense lawyers have also argued that the comments made by President Trump before his election made a fair trial impossible. But a military judge ruled in February that while Mr. Trump’s statements were “troubling,” they had not prejudiced the case against the sergeant. “At the time, I had no intention of causing search and recovery operations,” said Sergeant Bergdahl, who was a private first class when he disappeared. “I didn’t think they would have any reason to search for one private.”
His decision to plead guilty appeared to reflect the impact of a string of victories by Army prosecutors in motions and hearings over the past year. They include rulings by Colonel Nance to allow the case to go forward despite inflammatory statements on the campaign trail by President Trump, and to allow prosecutors to introduce evidence of grievous injuries suffered by service members who, the judge ruled, were searching for the sergeant at the time.
Sergeant Bergdahl was captured by Taliban militants within hours of disappearing from his remote outpost, and was held captive for five years.
He endured torture, including beatings with rubber hoses and copper cables, that his military debriefer later characterized as the most profound abuse sustained by any American service member since the Vietnam War. He was released in May 2014, when the Obama administration freed five detainees from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in exchange for him.
His case soon turned into a politically charged referendum in Washington on the Obama administration’s foreign policy. After he was freed, President Obama’s national security adviser, Susan Rice, said Sergeant Bergdahl, who was promoted while in captivity, had served with “honor and distinction,” and Mr. Obama appeared with his parents at the White House.
But Republicans attacked the trade that led to his release, and some critics asserted that he had deserted to the Taliban or that some troops had died searching for him. During the presidential race last year, Mr. Trump also described the sergeant a “dirty rotten traitor” and called for him to be executed, pantomiming a firing squad.
At a preliminary hearing, the Army’s chief investigator, Maj. Gen. Kenneth Dahl, testified that he had found no evidence that any soldiers had been killed while specifically searching for Sergeant Bergdahl. Neither was there evidence that the sergeant intended to desert and join the Taliban, he said.
General Dahl — now a lieutenant general — also testified that he found Sergeant Bergdahl to be truthful, albeit naïve and delusional, and that jailing the sergeant would be “inappropriate.”
Sergeant Bergdahl’s defense team later argued that Mr. Trump’s comments made a fair trial impossible, since everyone who could play a role in deciding his fate — including prosecutors, the judge and the general who controls the case — now ultimately reports to Mr. Trump as commander-in-chief. But Colonel Nance concluded that while Mr. Trump’s comments were “disturbing,” there was no reason to dismiss the charges.
Though the guilty pleas entered on Monday are of enormous legal significance, few significant facts were in dispute about what Sergeant Bergdahl did or why he did it. Several months after he was freed, he spent a day and a half answering every question put to him by General Dahl, filling a nearly 400-page transcript.
Much more will be in dispute during the sentencing phase.
Army prosecutors say that Sergeant Bergdahl’s departure from the outpost forced the military to drastically alter its operations and strategy during the manhunt, hurting the war effort. And they will present evidence of the serious wounds suffered by searchers, including Master Sgt. Mark Allen of the Army and Senior Chief Petty Officer Jimmy Hatch, a Navy SEAL.
Sergeant Allen was shot in the head during a firefight a little more than a week after Sergeant Bergdahl disappeared. He now uses a wheelchair and is unable to speak or care for himself.
During a separate mission around the same time, Chief Hatch suffered a severe leg wound that required dozens of surgical procedures and an agonizing recovery.
Defense lawyers argue that those injuries cannot be directly tied to Sergeant Bergdahl. They have cited a military investigation that found grave faults with the planning of the mission that left Sergeant Allen wounded, and evidence that they say indicates that Chief Hatch was injured on a mission that “targeted a well-known enemy combatant,” and thus had a purpose apart from rescuing the sergeant.
The defense is also expected to argue that Sergeant Bergdahl has already suffered profound consequences — the torture by his captors — for what he did. And they have argued that the Army also bears some responsibility for enlisting Sergeant Bergdahl to begin with, after he had suffered a psychological breakdown and washed out of Coast Guard basic training in 2006 for having an “adjustment disorder with depression.”
The sergeant was later found to have suffered schizotypal personality disorder in the period when he walked off his base in Afghanistan.