{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://coffman.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/coffman-to-potus-dont-pardon-bergdahl", "Coffman to POTUS: Don't Pardon Bergdahl", "2016-12-06", "2016", "2016-12", "Republican", "House", "CO", "Mike Coffman", "C001077", "coffman.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Washington, DC -- U.S. Representative Mike Coffman (CO-06) today penned a letter\u00a0to President Obama expressing his strongest opposition to a preemptive pardon of U.S. Army soldier Bowe Bergdahl.\nIn 2009, Bergdahl abandoned his post while serving in Afghanistan.\u00a0 Bergdahl was then captured by the Taliban and held captive for five years until 2014\u00a0when the Obama Administration released five Guantanamo Bay Islamic terrorist detainees in exchange for Bergdahl\u2019s release.\nLate last week, Bergdahl, facing a court-martial for desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, asked President Obama to preemptively pardon him.\n\u201cI am deeply concerned about the precedent such a pardon would set for our Armed Forces,\u201d wrote Coffman, a Marine Corps combat veteran, in his letter to President Obama. \u201cBowe Bergdahl\u2019s decision to abandon his post in a combat zone during the height of the Afghan insurgency was a clear violation of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice\u2026His actions must be judged by the pending court-martial.\u201d\nCoffman is also concerned about a preemptive pardon for Bergdahl because of the high costs the U.S. Military apparently incurred seeking to rescue him when he first went missing.\n\u201cBergdahl\u2019s decision to abandon his post was not a \u2018harmless\u2019 act that simply led to his capture by the Taliban. It\u00a0led to a major military search operation in one of the most dangerous regions of Afghanistan that I think endangered the lives of other U.S. service members and may have led to some becoming casualties,\u201d Coffman continued. \u201cA preemptive pardon for Bergdahl will, I am convinced, seriously undermine the military court-martial process and send the wrong message to the hundreds of thousands of men and women in uniform who have served honorably in combat.\u201d\nBergdahl\u2019s court-martial is currently scheduled to commence in February of 2017.\nA Marine Corps combat veteran, Coffman serves on the House Armed Services Committee and House Veteran\u2019s Affairs Committee, where he is the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["http://coffman.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/coffman-to-potus-dont-pardon-bergdahl"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.471158117055893, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}