Military veteran and Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., told Newsmax on Monday that the Pentagon should appeal a federal judge's decision from July 25 to vacate the court-martial of former U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.
In 2017, Bergdahl was convicted of deserting his unit in 2009, only to be captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
"For every veteran out there who thinks Bergdahl's behavior was a slap in the face, and for all of the others that are now in danger once again for the five terrorists that [former President Barack] Obama traded for him, we want to see justice done," said Waltz while appearing on "The Record With Greta Van Susteren."
The Florida representative was one of five lawmakers and military veterans who on Friday sent a letter to the Pentagon and Department of Justice, requesting a review of the case and possibly a new trial.
The Associated Press reported July 25 that a military judge, Jeffrey Nance, who presided over Bergdahl's court-martial in 2017, failed to disclose his application to the administration of former President Donald Trump, who openly rebuked Bergdahl for an immigration judge position, causing a conflict of interest in his hearing the case.
Bergdahl walked away from his post in Afghanistan in 2009 to report "poor leadership" within the unit. He was subsequently captured and tortured by the Taliban for five years before Obama traded the five Taliban terrorists for his release in 2014.
Pleading guilty to desertion and misbehavior, Bergdahl was dishonorably discharged from the Army and had to pay a fine of $10,000. However, he was not given any jail time due to the time the Taliban held him, the report said.
Waltz, who was part of a Green Beret unit searching for Bergdahl in Afghanistan then, said that everyone "in the theater was told" and ordered to search for him in dangerous Taliban-infested areas.
"What the media likes to ignore is all of the soldiers in the rest of the theater that didn't have the medivac and air support, the intelligence support, that they normally would have," he said. "[The support] was all devoted to looking for this one soldier."
Waltz said the narrative that Bergdahl wanted to report problems with his unit was false, but that he wanted to go to the Taliban.
"That's a bunch of nonsense," Waltz said. "He defected to the Taliban because he sympathized with them."
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