Trump Calls Bergdahl Sentence ‘Complete and Total Disgrace’ but His Public Attacks Are What Caused It
Trump Is the Cause of Bergdahl’s Lighter Sentence
President Donald Trump, from Air Force One enroute to the first stop on his ten day trip to Asia, took the time to tweet his outrage over a military judge’s just-announced sentencing in the Bowe Bergdahl desertion case. Bergdahl will not serve prison time but will receive a dishonorable discharge after having his rank lowered. He will also have to pay a $10,000 fine.Â
The Commander-in-Chief was furious:
The decision on Sergeant Bergdahl is a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2017
Trump has been attacking Bergdahl since even before he was on the campaign trail, but he definitely used Bergdahl as a lightning rod to win over his base at rallies. So big a part of Trump’s stump speech was Bergdahl that the Bergdahl defense team put together a 28-minute video of clips of Trump attacking him as a “dirty rotten traitor” who should be executed.
This week The New York Times ran a story headlined: “Sgt. Bergdahl’s Sentence May Be Lighter Because of Trump’s Comments.”
President Trump’s harsh criticism of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who walked off his Army post in Afghanistan in 2009 and was captured by the Taliban, will weigh in favor of a lighter sentence for the sergeant, a military judge said on Monday.
“I will consider the president’s comments as mitigation evidence as I arrive at an appropriate sentence,†the judge, Col. Jeffery R. Nance of the Army, said during a hearing at Fort Bragg.
And yet, Trump still doesn’t get it.
That article was Monday. On Tuesday, a terrorist attacked in New York City, killing eight people and wounding about a dozen others.
Trump called him “a very sick and deranged person” who should be sent to Gitmo and get the death penalty.
In NYC, looks like another attack by a very sick and deranged person. Law enforcement is following this closely. NOT IN THE U.S.A.!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 31, 2017
NYC terrorist was happy as he asked to hang ISIS flag in his hospital room. He killed 8 people, badly injured 12. SHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 2, 2017
As NCRM reported, prosecutors and legal experts have already weighed in, saying Trump may have tainted the jury pool and actually helped the terrorist.
And, as the AP reports, Trump’s own comments are affecting his agenda.
Beyond criminal cases, some judges are taking account of Trump’s tweets and other seemingly unscripted remarks to assess the motivations behind policies, including a ban on visitors to the United States from several mostly Muslim countries and a ban on transgender members of the military. The latter was actually announced in a series of tweets beginning at 5:55 a.m. on July 26.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly incorporated screen grabs of the tweets into her 76-opinion that blocked the transgender service member ban and cited “the unusual circumstances surrounding the President’s announcement” among her reasons for doing so.
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