Bergdahl seeks pardon ahead of desertion trial

Trump’s rhetoric on campaign trail motivates request.

WASHINGTON — Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the former U.S. prisoner of war in Afghanistan who was freed in a 2014 swap for five Taliban detainees, has asked President Barack Obama to pardon him before leaving the White House to President-elect Donald Trump, who has called the soldier “a no-good traitor who should have been executed.”

After the presidential election, Bergdahl’s legal team submitted copies of a clemency application to the White House, the Justice Department and the Pentagon, according to White House and Justice Department officials.

It requested a pre-emptive pardon that would avert Bergdahl’s court-martial trial on charges of desertion and misbehaving before the enemy that endangered fellow soldiers. The trial is scheduled to begin April 18.

Bergdahl left his outpost in Afghanistan without permission in 2009 and was captured by militants, prompting a dangerous but fruitless search. His captors held him in brutal conditions for five years, including locking him in a cage and in darkness for lengthy periods.

The Obama administration eventually secured his release in exchange for sending five high-level Taliban detainees from the Guantánamo Bay prison to Qatar, which agreed to monitor them and not let them travel.

That deal set off intense political controversy. Against that backdrop, an Army investigation last year recommended against punishing Bergdahl with jail time, concluding that he had acted under good but delusional motivations and noted his suffering in captivity. But in December 2015, a commander instead ordered him prosecuted in a general court-martial, where a conviction could yield a life sentence.

Eugene R. Fidell, Bergdahl’s lead defense lawyer, declined to comment on the pardon petition. But he said if the case is still pending on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, he will file a motion to have it dismissed, arguing that a fair military trial will be impossible after Trump becomes commander in chief.

At rallies, Trump repeatedly brought up the prisoner exchange as a bad deal. At a town hall-style meeting in August 2015, for example, he called Bergdahl a “dirty, rotten traitor” and pantomimed shooting him. Trump also falsely claimed that Americans were killed searching for Bergdahl and that the five Taliban ex-detainees were back on the battlefield.

Fidell has also complained about comments by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who, as Armed Services Committee chairman, oversees confirmation hearings for commissioned officers. McCain called Bergdahl a deserter and vowed to hold an oversight hearing if he went unpunished.