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A federal judge has voided the court-martial conviction of former Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who left his post in Afghanistan in 2009 and was then captured and held by the Taliban for five years. U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton on Tuesday issued a 63-page ruling granting summary judgment in favor of Bergdahl, who was convicted after pleading guilty in 2017 to charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. Walton argued that Bergdahl was denied a fair trial because the military judge who presided over the court martial, Jeffrey Nance, failed to disclose that he had applied to the executive...

A federal judge has voided former Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl's court-martial sentence and subsequent rulings on the case by military judges, setting up the possibility that he could request a reinstatement of rank or change of status for his dishonorable discharge. Senior Judge Reggie Walton, of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., issued an order Tuesday that partially granted the federal government's motion to dismiss the Bergdahl case. But Walton ruled in favor of Bergdahl's argument that the Army judge in his case failed to disclose a possible conflict of interest -- that he had applied for a civilian...

Four top members of the Taliban's new interim government are former Guantanamo Bay prisoners who were freed by the Obama administration in a prisoner exchange for Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl. The four new officials were members of the hardline 'Guantanamo Five' who were traded to free Bergdahl from the Taliban-aligned Haqqani network in 2014. The Taliban on Tuesday announced the appointment of Acting Director of Intelligence Abdul Haq Wasiq, Acting Minister of Borders and Tribal Affairs Norullah Noori, Deputy Defense Minister Mohammad Fazl, and Acting Minister of Information and Culture Khairullah Khairkhah. The four men, who also took part in...

The Department of Justice filed a motion this month to dismiss a petition filed by Bowe Bergdahl in which he sought to have his military conviction and sentence overturned.Bergdahl, a former U.S. Army sergeant, has filed multiple appeals in an effort to overturn his conviction after he pled guilty to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy when he fell captive to the Taliban in June 2009 after leaving his outpost in eastern Afghanistan. Bergdahl most recently filed an appeal in February, alleging former President Donald Trump and the late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) exerted undue influence over his case.On August...

Obama gave $5 billion and the ‘Taliban 5’ for deserter Bowe Burgdahl. These terrorists were instrumental in the overthrow of Afghanistan the New York Post reports: The mastermind of the regime change is former detainee Khairkhwa, the Taliban mullah whom Obama released from Gitmo even though the Pentagon classified him as too dangerous to release. Earlier this year, Khairkhwa assured the administration that the Taliban would not launch a spring military offensive if Biden committed to removing all remaining American troops. He also promised not to retaliate against any Afghans who worked with the US military or the US-backed government...

It was one of the worst trades in history, even worse than Nolan Ryan for Jim Fregosi or Kobe Bryant for Vlade Divac: Back in 2014, Barack Obama traded five Taliban commanders for one American who, we were led to believe, had been captured by the Taliban. Obama did all he could to make the swap seem noble: He said at the time that the recovery of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was “a reminder of America’s unwavering commitment to leave no man or woman in uniform behind on the battlefield,” and the five Taliban jihadis were sent to Qatar, where they...

Today, U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) reintroduced the American Forces Going Home After Noble (AFGHAN) Service Act to end America’s longest war and provide bonuses to those who have deployed in support of the Global War on Terrorism. This legislation also empowers America to redirect the savings from ending nation-building in Afghanistan to the country’s needs at home. The United States has been at war in Afghanistan since October 2001, where it has cost $2 trillion. We completed our mission long ago, Osama Bin Laden was killed in 2011, and Al Qaeda is all but eliminated from Afghanistan. Meanwhile, there...

Well, he’s back, folks. Bowe Bergdahl wants to appeal his desertion conviction because—you guessed it—Donald Trump is no longer president. Bergdahl claims the former president’s rhetoric prevented him from having a fair trial. The case stems back when Bergdahl abandoned his post in Afghanistan 12 years ago, which led to his capture by the Taliban. They held him for five years. Katie covered this fiasco of a story, noting that six US servicemen were killed trying to look for him. He was released in 2014 in a prisoner exchange, where we got this deserter for the price of releasing five...

Former Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl filed a lawsuit last week alleging President Donald Trump and the late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) caused “undue command influence” in his 2017 court-martial case in which he pleaded guilty on charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy.Bergdahl’s lawsuit, filed in the Washington D.C. federal court, accuses Trump and McCain of unduly influencing his case and further alleges the judge presiding over his original case had a duty to disclose that he was seeking a “lucrative job” with the Trump-era Department of Justice. Bergdahl’s lawsuit seeks to overturn his 2017 conviction, for which he...

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces has shot down an effort by convicted deserter and former Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl to have his conviction overturned based on comments made about him by President Donald Trump. "Appellant asks this Court to dismiss with prejudice the charges and specifications against him, or in the alternative, to grant other meaningful relief such as approving a sentence of no punishment. We decline to do so," Judge Kevin A. Ohlson wrote. In his ruling, Ohlson noted that "it is essential to note that the conduct Appellant engaged in, and the charges to...

The U.S. military's top appellate court on Friday rejected a legal challenge made by former Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl over his court-martial conviction for deserting his post in Afghanistan.Bergdahl's lawyers argued that repeated comments made by President Trump -- both while he was a presidential candidate in 2016 and then later as commander in chief, when he repeatedly ridiculed Bergdahl -- prevented the ex-soldier from receiving a fair trial. Trump has referred to Bergdahl as a "traitor" and even suggested he be shot or thrown from a plane without a parachute.

Former Congressman Steve Stockman, whom leftwing Salon called a “Tea Party darling,” has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his appeal from a 10-year criminal sentence on multiple counts involving raising money from just two GOP donors. You may have heard the term “criminalization of politics.” Steve Stockman’s 2018 conviction is very literally an example. Stockman’s asking the Supreme Court to overturn that politicized conviction should be watched by conservatives who know that a Biden/Harris administration would be a reboot of the lawless and lawbreaking Obama Deep State, but probably even more vindictive towards conservatives. Representative Steve Stockman 2014...

The progressive socialist left, along with their media accomplices, have gone into another apoplectic unhinged rage. I know, what else is new? This time it is all about the dismissal of one US Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman. LTC Vindman has now risen to the dubious acclaim of being referred to as a hero. In the fall of 2018, here in Texas, there had to be an emergency session of the Texas State Board of Education because some leftists wanted to remove the term “heroic” from Texas state history curriculum in reference to the defenders of the Alamo. The left...

Army soldier Bowe Bergdahl contends President Donald Trump and U.S. Sen. John McCain made comments that interfered with his right to a fair trial at Fort Bragg. A military court has agreed to hear the appeal of Bowe Bergdahl, the Army soldier who left his post during a deployment in Afghanistan in 2009 to walk to another American base but got captured by the Taliban and held prisoner for five years. At a court-martial at Fort Bragg in 2017, Bergdahl pleaded guilty to desertion to shirk hazardous duty and to misbehavior before the enemy. He was sentenced to a $10,000...

Retired Army Master Sgt. Mark Allen has died 10 years after he was shot in the head while searching for deserter Pvt. Bowe Bergdahl in Afghanistan. Allen died on Saturday at the age of 46, according to funeral information posted online. He had been unable to walk or speak since he was a sniper shot him in the head in July 2009 while he was looking for Bergdahl, who had walked off his base in Afghanistan and was held by the Taliban for five years, the Walton Tribune reported. At Bergdahl's trial, Allen's wife Shannon testified that it would take...

An Army appeals court ruled Tuesday that tweets from President Trump attacking U.S. Army soldier Bowe Berghdahl did not unlawfully influence his trial for desertion, according to CNN. Bergdahl’s attorneys had argued that tweets and public statements from Trump describing their client as “a no-good traitor who should have been executed” unduly influenced the case, and that Bergdahl was entitled to have a court reconsider the case or grant clemency as a result. A three-judge Army Court of Criminal Appeals panel rejected the argument 2-1, according to the network. "Although there was some evidence of unlawful command influence adduced at...

"...the Obama administration actively sought to keep the lid on Robert Bergdahl and Michael Hastings’ reporting of Bowe Bergdahl, as secret FBI documents now reveal. A 22-page secret FBI report dated June 11, 2012, obtained by investigative reporter Jason Leopold, shows that both Hastings and former Afghanistan war veteran and co-writer Matt Farwell were under an intense FBI investigation in early 2012. The document is highly redacted; but it appears Hastings and Farwell were under direct FBI surveillance, including when they met with Bowe Bergdahl’s parents in 2012."

When Donald Trump announced that his first trip abroad as president would take him to Saudi Arabia and to Israel, it was a signal that the new administration had returned America’s traditional alliances in the Middle East to their privileged status. For the prior eight years, the Obama White House had, in contrast, prioritized relations with these countries’ regional adversary in Iran and embraced the Islamic Republic’s regional allies, Turkey and Qatar, as key interlocutors and partners. The Obama administration also supported Islamist movements in the Middle East, principally the Muslim Brotherhood, that threated to topple regimes and instigate more...

Jamal Khashoggi’s op-eds published in the very influential Washington Post certainly qualify as attempts to change U.S. policy against Saudi Arabia and in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Washington Post has caused itself a major scandal since it has come to light they and their martyred “reformer” Jamal Khashoggi were publishing anti-Saudi propaganda for Qatar. They tried to bury this in a pre-Christmas Saturday news dump, but that can’t stop the damage this will do to their reputation.“Text messages between Khashoggi and an executive at Qatar Foundation International show that the executive, Maggie Mitchell Salem, at times shaped the...

It’s episode 25, Katie is back, and the 2018 midterms are here. We’re less than a week away from Election Day. CNN is having conniption fits. And the fallout from the Obama presidency is still being felt. We all know CNN is straight trash, so here’s another story that triggered them to no end last night. The new ad from the Trump campaign shows illegal alien and totally insane cop-killer Luis Bracamontes showing zero remorse for the two officers he killed, while also saying he wished he had killed more. Bracamontes was deported twice by the way. It’s juxtaposed with...