‘The U.S. government betrayed them’: Pardoned Army veteran pleads for clemency for imprisoned brother-in-arms

An Army veteran who was granted a presidential pardon in 2020 is now actively working to secure the release of a fellow soldier, convinced that the life sentence imposed on him is unwarranted.

Nicholas Slatten, a former Army sergeant and Blackwater contractor, was a member of Raven 23, a tactical support team assigned to protect a U.S. diplomat in Baghdad, Iraq. Following the tragic Nisour Square incident on Sept. 16, 2007, numerous false allegations by the U.S. government against Slatten and his fellow team members emerged.

Despite several unsuccessful attempts to convict Slatten on criminal charges in the years that followed, he was eventually found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison in 2019. However, he received a pardon from President Donald Trump in December 2020. (The whole case – including exposing how “Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder and Barack Obama had rammed four Americans’ convictions through the courts,” including Slatten’s – is explored in detail in “Raven 23: How the Department of Justice Betrayed American Heroes.” Regarding the book, veteran journalist Sharyl Attkisson said, “What happened to the men of Raven 23 and how the U.S. government betrayed them is one of the most incredible political stories of our time.”

Now Slatten has shifted his focus to former Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, a decorated veteran of four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The narrative that the mainstream media has is that he was accused of leaving the wire, leaving his Army post, at night and attacking two villages that were near the base, killing as many as 16 men, women and children,” Slatten said. “Bales went in and carried out what he thought was a pre-emptive strike against Taliban fighters who had previously wounded U.S. service members and were planning another attack, and it’s been called a massacre, right? Even Bales didn’t deny what happened.”

And yet, Slatten said, “Even before the facts of the case were investigated or charges were filed, President Obama publicly condemned Bales and said that the death penalty was not off the table.” In Slatten’s view, that undermined Bales’ right to a fair trial: “What does that do for your jury and the talking heads of the news media? He had no chance.” Bales was subsequently sentenced to life without parole on Aug. 23, 2013.

However, Slatten argued, “The truth behind the entire matter goes a lot deeper.”

What the prevailing narrative fails to say is that Bales had completed three combat tours before this event, during which he was exposed to at least 10 improvised explosive device (IED) blasts and the brutal realities of war.

“By the end of his second tour,” Slatten said, “it was so severe that he had to go to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) counseling and traumatic brain injury (TBI) therapy, and he was prescribed medication for both.” At this point, Slatten insists there should have been a full stop and reassessment of the case. “Because of these diagnoses,” Slatten explained, “he was technically nondeployable, but they deployed him anyway – and that’s where he ended up getting into trouble.”

During this fourth deployment, Slatten said, Bales also displayed behavior that should have warranted serious attention, yet it was overlooked. Why was Bales sent out for a fourth deployment? Why was he involved in an active combat role? Those are the questions Slatten asks today.

He pointed out that Bales had also taken Mefloquine, an antimalarial medication, during that period. Alarmingly, the drug is also known to cause serious neuropsychiatric side effects, including anxiety, paranoia, depression, hallucinations, psychosis and suicidal ideation. The drug is specifically contraindicated for individuals with depression or anxiety.

So, since traumatic brain injury, for example, commonly causes emotional/behavioral symptoms like irritability, mood swings, anxiety, depression and even personality changes, one might well question why Mefloquine was ordered in the first place.

“Coincidentally,” Slatten said, “the Army stopped administering the drug after Bales’ incident, but this was never disclosed.”

For Slatten, these facts called into question his mens rea (Latin for “guilty mind”), a fundamental principle of criminal law that requires proof of a defendant’s culpable mental state, i.e. a mindset or intent to commit murder.

He added that prosecutors even enlisted members of the Taliban as witnesses to secure a death penalty and subsequently transported nine Afghans to the U.S. to provide testimony against Bales during sentencing.

Slatten was taken aback to find that DNA from five of the witnesses against Bales had been found on IEDs used against Americans, but this information was never revealed either.

What’s more, in studying the case, Slatten said witnesses also used the word “soldiers” – plural – in their testimony. “This tells me multiple people may have hit those villages and Bob took all the blame for it,” he said. “Would our government, like, cover up something like that? It is the same government that sent him to war while he’s sick, while he’s nondeployable, but no one said anything about that.”

Slatten offered a thought-provoking comparison. What was the number of drone strikes carried out by the Obama administration that resulted in civilian casualties?

The answer: A total of 563 drone strikes were conducted in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen throughout Obama’s two terms (2009-2017), marking a notable rise from the 57 documented under President George W. Bush. Obama’s operations led to an estimated 3,797 fatalities, with civilian casualties ranging from 324 to 807.

“If you do it from a chair with a drone, it’s OK, right?”

Slatten, in an appeal to President Trump, states, “Staff Sergeant Bales deserves clemency. He needs to be at home with his wife and his children who have never given up on him after all these years, getting the help he needs to heal his wounds.”