Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s court martial for desertion and misbehavior before the enemy has been pushed back to February 2017. It was originally scheduled for this August, but has been delayed to “provide time for resolving disputes over the defense team’s access to classified documents,” according to Fox News.
The report adds:
The judge, Col. Jeffrey Nance, also ruled that media organizations could hire a stenographer to capture courtroom discussions during the trial, and he gave Army prosecutors one week to provide reporters covering the case with online access to court documents.
Bergdahl’s lawyers contend that General Robert Adams of the Army Forces Command at Ft. Bragg was misled by incomplete advice from Army lawyers, leading him to call for a court-martial, despite the primary investigating officer recommending that Bergdahl should not face jail time. The judge postponed a decision on this contention.
Bergdahl’s defense team also complained about presidential candidate Donald Trump “damaging their client’s chances for a fair trial by calling him a ‘dirty, rotten traitor,’ who ‘should have been executed,’” as the Associated Press put it. More specifically, Trump once recommended executing Bergdahl by throwing him out of an airplane without a parachute.
Fox News reported:
The defense’s complaints about Trump have no bearing on the case right now, according to Rachel VanLandingham, a former Air Force lawyer who teaches at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles. But if he is elected in November and keeps up his harsh comments, the defense could more effectively argue that a President Trump is unfairly pressuring Army brass for a conviction.
Bergdahl is currently working a desk job at Fort Sam Houston, where his commander has “taken measures to ensure his physical safety when leaving the installation” due to threats against his person, according to his attorneys.
He has been assigned “no less than four military defense lawyers, plus his civilian lawyer, to try to beat the Army charge of desertion on the battlefield in Afghanistan,” reports The Washington Times.
Two of Bergdahl’s former platoon mates, platoon leader Sgt. Evan Buetow and Specialist Cody Full, appeared on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program Monday night to express their support for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Full mentioned Hillary Clinton’s lies about the Benghazi attack and her dismissal of the Benghazi families as liars as reasons he was supporting Trump.
“If a person is willing to call a Gold Star mother or a widow a liar, there is no lie she will not tell the American public,” said Full.