By Rebecca Kheel - 12-24-15 06:00 AM EST
The controversial swap for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has reemerged as a political headache for the White House heading into 2016.
A top-rated podcast and his imminent trial have pushed the Bergdahl case back into the spotlight, providing fodder for critics of the Obama administration on Capitol Hill who have questioned whether the White House paid too high a price to rescue a solider now facing court martial.
“The White House has its agenda and its issues which are more along the line of healthcare and gun control ... so the last thing it needs is network news and cable talking heads spending all their time talking about Bergdahl,” said Tobe Berkovitz, an advertising professor at Boston University and a political media consultant.
“It’s not what the White House wants the news to be talking about,” he added. “There’s not much they can do except hope the public loses interest.”
After a lull in attention, Bergdahl’s case shot back into the headlines this month.
He gave his first public interview to NPR’s popular podcast “Serial”; the House Armed Services Committee released a report finding the administration broke the law when it frred five Guantánamo Bay detainees for Bergdahl without notifying Congress; and an Army commander ordered that Bergdahl face a general court-martial, setting up a trial and the possibility of a life sentence.
In 2009, Bergdahl walked off his base in Afghanistan and was captured by the Taliban. He was held hostage for five years before the Obama administration arranged the swap to release him.
The swap that freed him in 2014 was negotiated through the government of Qatar, not directly with Bergdahl’s captors; the five Guantánamo detainees released from were held in Qatar for a year.
Bergdahl, 29, now faces charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, which carries a maximum life sentence.
During his arraignment Tuesday, he deferred on entering a plea.
In the first episode of this season of “Serial,” Bergdahl said he left his post thinking he was a real-life Jason Bourne. He said he wanted to cause an alert to garner an audience with officials who could address his concerns.
“And what I was seeing from my first unit all the way up into Afghanistan, all I was seeing was, basically, leadership failure, to the point that the lives of the guys standing next to me were, literally, from what I could see, in danger of something seriously going wrong and somebody being killed,” Bergdahl said.
In the second episode, a Taliban fighter said the insurgents saw Bergdahl as a “golden chicken” that was worth thousands of their men.
It remains to be seen what other revelations will come from the podcast, which is running new episodes on a weekly basis.
In the meantime, the Bergdahl trial looms, with the next hearing scheduled for Jan. 12.
The general court-martial came despite a recommendation from a preliminary hearing officer that Bergdahl face a special court-martial, a lower judicial proceeding that would have come with a maximum penalty of 12 months of confinement.
The White House has avoided commenting directly on Bergdahl, citing the ongoing judicial proceeding.
“This is a case that is currently working its way through the military justice process,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters last week. “And as the spokesperson for the commander in chief, there's a lot of sensitivity about the potential for influencing the outcome of that military justice proceeding.”
But outside observers say the attention on the trial is sure to ruffle the White House.
“I imagine the White House was pulling for the military lawyer’s view and no trial, and now they’re disappointed,” said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University.
The Bergdahl case touches on several Republican criticisms of the president, Jillson said, from Obama’s attempts to release dangerous detainees from Guantánamo to his hazy strategy in the Middle East.
“One of the problems that the White House will have is that the word feckless will come up innumerable times from Republicans, especially in talking both about Obama and Bergdahl,” Jillson said. “They’ll try to link those two.”
The Republican-authored House Armed Service Committee report released this month slammed Obama, finding the administration broke the law by not notifying Congress 30 days in advance that detainees were being transferred.
That’s in line with the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office, which last year similarly found the administration broke the law.
But the committee report went one step further, arguing the administration misled reporters and lawmakers about the prisoner exchange.
“This extended study demonstrates that the administration worked over six months to arrange and effectuate a complicated and controversial transfer of five dangerous Taliban detainees lawfully held at GTMO,” reads the report, which was led by Reps. Mac Thornberry (Texas) and Vicky Hartzler (Mo.). “It did so without properly informing Congress or even communicating the fact that the plan was being developed, despite a legal requirement and specific pledges to do precisely the opposite. This is deeply disturbing.”
A Democratic rebuttal agreed the Obama administration should have notified Congress 30 days in advance, but objected to the broader conclusions that the administration kept the swap secret for political reasons.
“This report is an unbalanced, partisan and needless attempt to justify a predetermined position regarding the transfer of five Guantanamo detainees in exchange for the release of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl from enemy captivity,” said the rebuttal, written by Reps. Adam Smith (Wash.) and Jackie Speier (Calif.).
“The report struggles to prove its assertions, yet it excoriates the administration over the means by which Sergeant Bergdahl’s release was secured. In our view, the report is more advocative and speculative than determinative, and we disagree with a preponderance of its assertions.”
The administration has said it stands by its decision to do the prisoner exchange.
“The bottom line for this matter is that Sergeant Bergdahl was an American citizen who put on the uniform of the United States military,” Earnest said last week.
“And he was rescued by the United States military. And the commander in chief feels a responsibility to everyone who puts on the uniform that we're not going to leave them behind. And the way that this — the way that Sergeant Bergdahl was rescued I think is a testament to the president's commitment to that principle.”
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