Prosecutors fight back against bid to remove four-star f | ArmyTimes

In an ongoing back and forth, prosecutors in the case against Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl roundly rejected a defense petition to have Gen. Robert Abrams removed from the case, calling the request “not supported by the facts” and having “little to no legal authority.”

Abrams, in an affidavit included with the prosecution’s response, also rejected the defense’s claims, writing “all decisions made by me as commander [of Forces Command] and the general court-martial convening authority were within my sole discretion, based on the material submitted to me. My decisions were not impacted by any outside influence and are mine alone.”

Bergdahl’s lawyers on Aug. 12 filed a motion calling for Abrams, the commanding general of Forces Command, to be disqualified as the general court-martial convening authority because of his “substantial prior involvement” in the case.

The motion also states Abrams referred charges against Bergdahl “without considering defense objections to and comments on the report of the preliminary hearing officer,” and burned letters of support he received that would have been “evidence favorable to the defense.”

In addition to disqualifying Abrams as the convening authority, the motion also asks that the charges against Bergdahl be dropped. And if any charges are “re-referred” against Bergdahl, he should not face any punishment if he’s found guilty, according to the motion.

In their response, filed Friday, prosecutors said the defense claim that Abrams, who served as the senior military assistant to then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, had “substantial prior involvement” in the case is “baseless.”

“The defense argument is essentially an attempt to conflate knowledge with involvement,” prosecutors wrote in their response to the defense. “First-hand knowledge is a legal term of art with a particular meaning, and receiving information on a subject from third parties is quite literally the exact opposite. If the defense’s position were correct, anyone who ever read a news article or viewed a TV report about Sgt. Bergdahl would become a ‘fact witness.’”