President Donald Trump‘s comments about Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl do not mean the soldier can’t receive a fair sentencing, a military judge ruled on Monday as the soldier and captive took the stand for the first time. But those disparaging comments, including calling Bergdahl a traitor and suggesting he should be executed, will be considered a mitigating factor in his sentencing.
Bergdahl faces up to life in prison after he pleaded guilty to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy for walking off his Army base in Afghanistan in June 2009. He was subsequently captured by the Taliban and held for five years before he was freed in a prisoner exchange between the militant group and the Obama administration in May 2014.
Army Col. Jeffery Nance, the judge in Bergdahl’s case, denied a motion by the defense to dismiss the case on the grounds of what’s called “unlawful command influence.” That’s when a higher level military figure, including the president and commander-in-chief, influences or appears to influence judicial proceedings. Nance ruled that the court has not been directly affected and said he remains uninfluenced by Trump’s remarks.
This afternoon, Bergdahl took the stand, where he became emotional as he testified about his time in captivity.
As a candidate, Trump disparaged Bergdahl and the Obama administration’s agreement to get him back from the Taliban. On October 16, 2015, for example, Trump called him “a rotten traitor” and suggested he should be shot or dropped from an airplane.
“In the old days he’d get shot for treason,” he told a crowd of supporters. “If I win, I might just have him floating right in the middle of that place and drop him, boom. Let ’em have him. … I mean, that’s cheaper than a bullet.”
More recently, Trump declined to comment on Bergdahl’s case the day the soldier entered his guilty plea, but Trump told reporters, “I think people have heard my comments in the past.”
The other mitigating factors in Bergdahl’s sentencing, however, work against him — the emotional testimony of the soldiers who went searching for him and were injured. The prosecution is having those soldiers and their family members share their stories as evidence that Bergdahl deserves a harsh punishment for putting their lives in danger.
Some of the most vivid testimony last week came from Jonathan Morita, whose hand was shattered by a rocket-propelled grenade in an ambush.
Today, Master Sgt. Mark Allen’s wife Shannon Allen and his doctor Rafael S. Mascarinas III told Mark Allen’s story.
Allen was on a search mission with U.S. and Afghan troops in July 2009 when the group was attacked by insurgents and Allen was shot in the head. His life was saved by the medical teams in the field, but doctors were forced to remove both frontal lobes of Allen’s brain, according to Dr. Mascarinas’s testimony, the region of the brain that controls speaking and movement.
“His eyes were open, but he didn’t have any awareness of his environment, nor was he responding to commands,” Mascarinas said of Allen when he was admitted to his hospital in August 2009, noting Allen was in a “vegetative state” and today remains in “a minimally conscious state.”
Shannon Allen described her husband as a “happy-go-lucky guy,” a very active father who played with his son all the time, loved to go hiking and do outdoor activities.
But she cried as she shared, “The interactions have changed significantly. … His involvement now is much more passive, he’s not able to reach out to her or to talk to her,” she said of their daughter.
“He lost me as a wife because I have become his caregiver,” she added, noting that he cannot be left alone because he’s prone to seizures. “We can’t even hold hands anymore without me prying open his.”
The government rested its case this morning, and the defense has begun their case this afternoon. The afternoon session is closed to the press because in addition to Bergdahl’s testimony, confidential information will be discussed.
The defense says they will be done with witness testimony on Wednesday, and then after closing arguments, the case will be in the judge’s hands, with a decision possibly as soon as the end of this week.
