The Justice Department is appealing a U.S. District Court judge’s decision to dismiss the conviction and sentence of former Army Staff Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who abandoned his post in Afghanistan, triggered a military search and spent years in Taliban captivity.
A filing May 29 puts the case in the hands of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Judge Reggie Walton ruled last July that the sentence given by the military judge in Bergdahl’s court-martial — a reduction in rank and dishonorable discharge — must be dismissed because the judge failed to disclose a potential conflict of interest while overseeing the case.
After Walton’s announcement, the Justice Department filed a motion for reconsideration, as did Bergdahl’s attorneys, who argued that a separate decision by Walton dismissing their argument that President Donald Trump and the now-deceased Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., had exerted unlawful command influence in the case be reconsidered.
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Walton on May 23 published his reasoning for his decisions, reaffirming his earlier stance — that the dismissal of Bergdahl’s conviction should stand because Army judge Col. Jeffery Nance failed to disclose he had applied for a job within the Trump administration while he was hearing the case and in fact cited his involvement in the Bergdahl case as part of the application process.
Walton…
