After multiple delays, traitor Bowe Bergdahl will soon face a court-martial for walking away from his U.S. Army unit in Afghanistan to join the Taliban.
He was promptly captured the Taliban-aligned Haqqani network, who held Bergdahl for ransom. He was held for nearly five years until he was released in exchange for five senior Taliban commanders.
Bergdahl was released on May 31, 2014, which the Obama administration celebrated with a Rose Garden ceremony. But within weeks, it became clear Bergdahl had committed criminal desertion.
And Bergdahl may not be the only person who committed a crime in this case.
While the Taliban are an ideologically-driven movement, the Haqqani network that held him operates more as an organized crime syndicate with terrorist leanings. They don’t release captives without first securing cash payment, and they have no use for five Taliban commanders.
That raised the suspicions of then-Congressman Steve Stockman (R-TX), who issued a letter to the White House in June, 2014 asking “Was anyone in the Obama administration, or associated with the Obama administration, at any time aware of any form of compensation provided to anyone in exchange for Bergdahl?”
In response, the Obama administration answered, “The United States did not provide money in return for Sgt. Bergdahl.”
That wasn’t the question that was asked.
It is a federal crime for the White House to directly pay a terrorist group, and a direct payment to the Haqqani from the White House would be too easy to track. That’s why Stockman asked if there was “ANY form of compensation, direct or THIRD PARTY” (emphasis added).
The Obama administration refused to directly answer the question.
The chances Obama authorized illegal payments to terrorists to secure Bergdahl grew even greater after the The Wall Street Journal reported April 28, 2015 that in June, 2012, the Obama administration provided an FBI background check on a Pakistani moneyman to help the family of Warren Weinstein make a $250,000 ransom payment to the terrorist group al Qaeda.
The cash was supposed to secure the release of Weinstein, a 72-year-old American kidnapped in Pakistan by al Qaeda in 2011. The cash was handed over to al Qaeda in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, but the terrorists did not release Weinstein. He was killed this January in a U.S. drone strike.
The Obama administration encouraged the family to make the payment to al Qaeda. “U.S. officials said the family was particularly encouraged by the ransom option when the FBI said it was probably the best chance to win Mr. Weinstein’s release,” the Journal reported.
By June of 2015, Obama changed the law to allow payments to terrorists to secure ransoms.
But if that were the case with Bergdahl’s release, it was illegal at the time, and that’s significant for Bergdahl’s defense.
If the federal government knew of payments to the Haqqani to secure his release, Bergdahl’s attorneys can force the government to cut a deal, or be implicated in the commission of a federal crime.
Will his attorneys try to get him off the hook by following the red flags pointing to what appears to be illegal dealings by the Obama administration?
Cross-examination of prosecution witnesses could turn interesting.
