Having been around the military for three decades and associated a good bit with budget/finance folks...I can say with some authority that none of them would have agreed to this scheme or signed any paperwork. It would have required a minimum of a three-star general to make this happen, and he had to sign some documentation for the cash to be withdrawn from a bank and given to someone to deliver.
If this is all true....this guy needs to be brought in and discharged. It violates every single rule in the book.
“.........November 6, 2014 12:12 pm
The Department of Defense attempted to pay a ransom for the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl but the transaction’s Afghan intermediary ran off with the cash, according to a member of the House Armed Services Committee.
The claims directly contradict statements from the Pentagon, which has vehemently denied that it paid cash to a Taliban splinter group that captured Bergdahl in 2009. The administration in May released five-value Guantanamo Bay detainees in exchange for Bergdahl’s release.
However, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R., Calif.) claims that cash did in fact change hands, the Wall Street Journal reports.
In a letter to the Pentagon released Wednesday, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R., Calif.) said a payment was made to an Afghan intermediary early this year to help secure the May 31 release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was held for nearly five years by the Haqqani Network in Pakistan, which is classified as a terrorist organization. […]
In his letter, Mr. Hunter asked Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to make new inquires with the Joint Special Operations Command about the allegations that the U.S. made the payment.
According to Mr. Hunter, the intermediary took the money but disappeared and failed to secure Sgt. Bergdahl’s release. Mr. Hunter didn’t specify how much money was paid to the Afghan intermediary, and didn’t identify the sources of his information.
Hunter’s allegations are partially consistent with the assessment of a veteran intelligence officer involved in the five-year hunt for Bergdahl who told the Washington Free Beacon in June that a ransom was almost surely paid.
He described the Haqqani network as more of an organized crime outfit than an ideological group of “Mujahids.” They are motivated by money and power, he said, not the perceived religious conflict that animates most Afghan militants...........
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/congressman-pentagon-pursued-cash-ransom-for-bergdahl/
And in June 2014
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/experts-say-cash-ransom-may-have-been-paid-for-bergdahl/
June 6, 2014 4:35 pm
Reported details of the high-profile prisoner swap that freed Bowe Bergdahl over the weekend are not telling the full story, according to a high-level intelligence official involved in efforts to find and rescue the Army sergeant.
The Haqqani Network, a terrorist group operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan, freed Bergdahl on Saturday after holding him captive for five years in exchange for the release of five Guantanamo Bay prison inmates.
A senior intelligence official with intimate knowledge of the years-long effort to locate and rescue Bergdahl told the Washington Free Beacon that the details of that exchange do not add up.
The official, who requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press, speculated that a cash ransom was paid to the Haqqani Network to get the group to free the prisoner.
The Obama administration reportedly considered offering cash for his release as late as December 2013. The State Department has repeatedly refused to say whether the deal that released Bergdahl involved any cash payment.
The ransom plan was reportedly abandoned, but the intelligence official insisted that there is reason to believe that cash changed hands as part of the deal.....”