US Army Deliberates on How to Punish Travis King

The US Army is deliberating whether it would hand down disciplinary actions against Pvt. Travis King after he crossed over into North Korea last July.

King has since returned to the US, and experts told CNN it is possible he could be charged under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Specifically, he might be charged under Article 85 for desertion or Article 86 for going absent without leave (AWOL).

However, it is yet unclear if the Army would take such a step.

Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said Tuesday (October 3) that any punishment King could face would come from his chain of command after he completed the reintegration process at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas.

Prior to crossing the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), King already faced criminal charges and was prosecuted by a court martial by the Army in South Korea.

Previous reports about King said that he was expected to be administratively separated from the military after being found guilty in a court-martial hearing related to assault and other charges.

Army May Want to Avoid Full Trial, Defense Expert Says

According to Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Army might want to easily discharge King and not go through a full trial.

"If they were going to do another trial, they have to assign them to a unit wherever he is," he added. "[H]e'd have to go to work every day for however long it [takes] to get the court martial together, and then hold the court-martial, and then have all the materials reviewed because all that has to go to headquarters of the Army, so could be six months, could be longer."

Another factor in the Army's potential decision with King could be what information he was able to provide North Korea.

Retired US Air Force judge advocate and Southwestern Law School military law expert Rachel VanLandingham referred to the case of Bowe Bergdahl, who pleaded guilty in 2017 to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy after he walked off post in Afghanistan in 2009 and was captured by the Taliban.

Officials who debriefed Bergdahl when he returned to US custody emphasized in his trial how cooperative he was in sharing information about the Taliban and his time in their custody.

An official from the Pentagon's Joint Personnel Recovery Agency testified that Bergdahl was an "extremely cooperative participant" in his debriefs after returning to the US. One intelligence analyst also described the information he provided to the US as "a gold mine."

"Those are factors that could impact court-martial - what he's doing right now and how cooperative he is with folks he's debriefing with on the intelligence side," she said.

However, Cancian argued it was "unlikely" King had any intelligence that would be of particular value given that his captivity was not very long.

"I just don't think they want this guy around," he added, referring to King's misconduct issues in South Korea. "My guess is they're going to process him out as quickly as they can."