Mattis: No evidence of Bergdahl collusion with Taliban

During his time in Tampa as commander of U.S. Central Command, Marine Gen. James Mattis said he saw no evidence to confirm that Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, released in a prisoner swap last week, collaborated with his captors.

“I have never seen one bit of verified or confirmed evidence of that,” Mattis said in a phone interview with The Tampa Tribune. “Not one bit. You hear things and it was second- and third-hand.”
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The Fox News story says information about Bergdahl converting to Islam, fraternizing openly with his captors and declaring himself a “mujahid,” or warrior for Islam, came from a source new to Clarridge’s Eclipse Group “whose trustworthiness had not been fully vetted by the group. However, the report stated, the informant “does have plausible access to the information reported.”

Fox News reported that Clarridge told them Eclipse Group “enjoyed a subcontract through the assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict from November 2009 through May 31, 2010, and that after the contract was terminated, he invested some $50,000 of his own money to maintain the elaborate network of informants and handlers that had yielded such detailed accounts of Bergdahl’s status.