Judge vacates Bowe Bergdahl's desertion conviction and dishonorable discharge

A federal judge vacated the conviction and dishonorable discharge of Bowe Bergdahl, nearly six years after the former U.S. Army soldier was convicted of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy.

Judge Reggie Walton of the D.C. district court on Tuesday vacated all court-martial proceedings against Bergdahl after October 2017, per a 63-page ruling, citing a possible conflict of interest with the judge who issued the ruling in November 2017.

Then-military judge Army Col. Jeffrey Nance oversaw Bergdahl's court martial and ruled that Bergdahl would be dishonorably discharged but avoid prison. Nance also reduced Bergdahl's rank to private and ordered him to pay $10,000. 

Bergdahl had been held in Taliban captivity from 2009 until 2014, when he was released in exchange for five Guantanamo Bay detainees.

Nance did not disclose before the court martial proceedings that he had applied to be an immigration judge during the Trump administration. This posed a possible conflict of interest as then-President Donald Trump had repeatedly slammed Bergdahl as a "traitor" during his 2016 presidential campaign and advocated for the sergeant's execution. 

Walton said in his ruling Tuesday that Nance's application to the executive branch created a "situation in which he might reasonably be expected to appeal to the president's expressed interest in the plaintiff's conviction and punishment," which could jeopardize the military judge's impartiality. 

Notably, however, Nance had followed the sentencing request from Bergdahl’s attorneys, who advocated for the sergeant to be dishonorably discharged, while Army prosecutors had asked for a 14-year prison sentence, CNN reported.

Trump criticized the decision on Twitter at the time as a "complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military."

Madeleine Hubbard is an international correspondent for Just the News. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram.