The case of Bowe Bergdahl: Judge, jury, executioner, President

For Trump, when America was younger and stronger, we would have known what to do

You have certainly heard of Bowe Bergdahl — the American soldier captured by the Taliban after he left his post in Afghanistan, the subject of the second season of the podcast “Serial” and the recurring object, during the presidential campaign, of Donald J. Trump’s ire.

With Mr. Bergdahl’s court-martial now in its second year — a pretrial session is set to begin on Monday — his defense team recently filed a motion to dismiss the charges against him on the basis of unlawful command influence. It claims that President Trump’s many prejudicial remarks about Mr. Bergdahl made at campaign events and