Mathew Golsteyn: Confession, Murder Charge, and Trump Pardon

Mathew Golsteyn is a former U.S. Army Special Forces major who was charged with premeditated murder for killing a detained Afghan man during a 2010 deployment, and who received a full presidential pardon from Donald Trump on November 15, 2019, before his case ever went to trial.¹ The Golsteyn pardon is one of the most contested exercises of presidential clemency in modern military justice, in part because it foreclosed a trial the Army was actively preparing to hold.

What Happened in Marjah

Golsteyn, a West Point graduate and decorated Green Beret with the 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne), deployed to Helmand Province in February 2010 as part of Operation Moshtarak, the coalition offensive to clear the Taliban from Marjah.²³

On February 22, 2010, during house-to-house searches following an explosion that killed two U.S. Marines, Golsteyn’s unit detained an Afghan man known as Rasoul after finding bomb-making materials in his possession.⁴ Golsteyn suspected Rasoul was the Taliban bombmaker responsible for the Marines’ deaths. Rasoul was brought to the base but scheduled for release.

Golsteyn said afterward that Afghan partners lacked the means to transfer Rasoul to a detention facility, that the Afghan judicial system would likely have freed him, and that a local tribal informant who had identified Rasoul was at risk of being killed once Rasoul learned the informant’s identity.⁵ Rather than release him, Golsteyn took Rasoul off the base and shot him. According to military documents, Golsteyn and another soldier brought the man to his home, where Golsteyn killed and buried him. Golsteyn and other soldiers later returned, dug up the remains, and burned them in a trash pit on base.⁶

The killing went unreported through official channels. Two days earlier, on February 20, Golsteyn had led actions during a four-hour engagement that would earn him the Silver Star, including running roughly 150 meters under fire to retrieve a Carl Gustaf recoilless rifle.⁷ The award was later approved for an upgrade to a Distinguished Service Cross.

How the Army Learned About the Killing

The Rasoul killing surfaced more than a year later, and it surfaced because Golsteyn told on himself. On September 6, 2011, he sat for a CIA job interview that included a polygraph. During the session, he admitted that he had captured, shot, and buried an unarmed suspected bombmaker in Afghanistan and then returned with two others to cremate and dispose of the body. He told interviewers he “knew it was illegal” but felt no remorse because his actions protected his teammates.⁸

On September 14, 2011, the CIA alerted the Pentagon to a “possible violation of criminal law.” Army Criminal Investigation Command opened a case the following month and concluded it in November 2013, finding that Golsteyn had knowingly violated the laws of war and alleging murder and conspiracy. No criminal charges followed. Golsteyn’s confession stood essentially alone: there was no body and no cooperating witnesses, and legal observers judged a court-martial conviction unlikely on that record.⁸

Silver Star Revocation and Administrative Discipline

The Army moved administratively instead. On April 24, 2014, Brigadier General Darsie D. Rogers issued a letter of reprimand for a “Law of Armed Conflict violation.” In a letter dated November 17, 2014, Secretary of the Army John McHugh revoked Golsteyn’s Silver Star, stating that had the original approving officer known about the investigation’s findings, he would not have approved the award.⁹ McHugh also disapproved the Distinguished Service Cross upgrade, citing federal law that bars the award for anyone who acted “dishonorably at any point during service.”

Golsteyn’s Special Forces tab was stripped through a separate action. In 2015, an Army board of inquiry found that a law-of-armed-conflict violation had not been proven by a preponderance of the evidence but did substantiate conduct unbecoming an officer, citing “misconduct, moral, or professional dereliction” tied to the killing, the cover-up, and the failure to report.⁷

The Fox News Admission and the Murder Charge

In late 2016, Golsteyn went on Fox News and admitted killing the Afghan man, framing it as a mission-necessary act against a Taliban bombmaker. His stated goal was to pressure the military into reconsidering the punishments that had cost him his Silver Star and Special Forces qualification.¹⁰ Asked on air whether he had killed the suspected bombmaker, he answered “Yes.”¹¹

The Army reopened the investigation near the end of 2016. On December 13, 2018, Golsteyn was charged with premeditated murder under Article 118 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, a charge carrying the potential death penalty.¹² U.S. Army Special Operations Command said the “immediate commander has determined that sufficient evidence exists to warrant” the charge.¹³ Golsteyn blamed the interview: “I’m here right now because of that interview.”

By this point investigators had done more than resurrect the confession. Several of Golsteyn’s teammates had been persuaded to provide evidence against him, and investigators were working to establish that Rasoul may not have been a bombmaker at all but an innocent farmer falsely accused by tribal rivals.¹⁴ One witness later told investigators he had initially lied about the events because of the “brotherhood of Green Berets.”¹⁵

Golsteyn’s attorney, Phillip Stackhouse, called the prosecution “contaminated by bogus ‘new’ evidence” and “compromised Taliban ‘witnesses’ purportedly found by a now-disgraced military investigator.”¹⁶ Stackhouse disputed the Army’s narrative that Golsteyn had executed Rasoul at his home, contending the killing occurred along a road after an ambush.¹⁷ He described the original CIA confession as a “fantasy.” The Army offered a plea deal of two to three years at Fort Leavenworth in exchange for a guilty plea to murder. Golsteyn refused.¹⁴

Trump’s Pardon

Three days after the charge was announced, on December 16, 2018, President Trump posted on Twitter that he would be “reviewing the case of a ‘U.S. Military hero,’ Major Matt Golsteyn,” referring to a Fox News segment featuring Pete Hegseth, and suggested he could use the pardon power if Golsteyn were convicted.¹¹ In October 2019 he wrote: “We train our boys to be killing machines, then prosecute them when they kill!”¹⁸

On November 15, 2019, with Golsteyn’s trial scheduled for February 2020, Trump signed an Executive Grant of Clemency giving him a full pardon. The pardon came while judicial proceedings were still active, and Golsteyn had not been convicted of anything.¹ The White House said “a swift resolution to the case of Major Golsteyn is in the interests of justice” and that the President was exercising his authority as Commander-in-Chief.¹⁹ In a call to Golsteyn, Trump said “it was an honor to be able to give us our lives back.”²⁰

The Golsteyn pardon was one of three military justice interventions Trump made that day. He also fully pardoned Army First Lieutenant Clint Lorance, who was serving a 19-year sentence for ordering his platoon to fire on unarmed Afghan villagers in 2012, and reversed a demotion for Navy SEAL Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, who had been acquitted of murder but convicted of posing for a photograph with a dead ISIS captive.²¹

Reaction Inside and Outside the Military

Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley had urged Trump not to intervene, and Milley warned that the pardons would damage U.S. relationships around the world. Three days later, Esper fired Navy Secretary Richard Spencer for separately contacting the President about Gallagher’s discipline outside the chain of command; Spencer cited a loss of shared understanding about “good order and discipline.”¹²²

Former Joint Chiefs Chairman General Martin Dempsey said that absent evidence of innocence or injustice, the pardons “signal our troops and allies that we don’t take the Law of Armed Conflict seriously.” Former Marine Corps Commandant General Charles Krulak said they would “undermine decades of precedent in American military justice” and provide “a propaganda tool for extremists.”²³ Gary Solis, a former military judge, said witnesses to war crimes “are going to think twice about reporting it.”²² Rupert Colville, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the pardons “run against the letter and the spirit of international law.”¹

Supporters saw it as a correction. Representative Duncan Hunter, Golsteyn’s primary congressional advocate, praised Trump for putting “Pentagon armchair lawyers on notice.” Pete Hegseth said the President believed “the benefit of the doubt should go to the guys pulling the trigger.”²³¹⁸

What the Pardon Did Not Restore

The pardon ended the criminal case, but it did not undo the earlier administrative penalties. On December 3, 2019, less than three weeks after the pardon, Lieutenant General Francis Beaudette, commander of U.S. Army Special Operations Command, denied Golsteyn’s request to reinstate his Special Forces tab.²⁴ The head of Army Special Operations Command stated that the pardon “does not erase or expunge the record of offense charges and does not indicate innocence.”²² Golsteyn told the Washington Post he was “disappointed, but I’m not surprised. I was really hoping they would do the right thing.”²⁵

The case was then forwarded to the Army Board for Correction of Military Records, which was tasked with considering reinstatement of the Special Forces tab, approval of the Distinguished Service Cross, and expungement of the 2014 letter of reprimand.²⁴

Why the Case Still Matters

Most military pardons come after conviction and at least part of a sentence. Golsteyn’s came before trial. Legal scholars called that “highly unusual,” noting that it denied the government the opportunity to present its case and prevented any judicial finding of fact.¹ A 2025 New York Times Magazine investigation described the pardon as having “cut short an investigation” that was building toward trial.⁵

The case resurfaced at Pete Hegseth’s January 2025 confirmation hearing for Secretary of Defense. Senator Jack Reed pressed Hegseth on his advocacy for Golsteyn and others, arguing that in several of these cases the accused service members’ own peers had reported them, and that Hegseth’s “definition of lethality seems to embrace those people who do commit war crimes.” Hegseth said his priority would be ensuring “that lawyers aren’t the ones getting in the way” of combat operations.²⁶ Hegseth was confirmed and serves as Secretary of Defense.¹⁴

1
Cambridge University Press. President Trump Intervenes in Proceedings of U.S. Troops Charged or Convicted of Acts Amounting to War Crimes
2
Military Times. Matthew L. Golsteyn
3
Long War Journal. Assault on Taliban Sanctuary in Marjah
4
NBC News. Green Beret Charged With Murdering Afghan Man
5
New York Times. Trump Pardon of Green Beret in Taliban Case
6
Army Times. Former Green Beret Major Faces Murder Charge for 2010 Afghanistan Incident
7
The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School. Military Law Review, Vol. 229, Issue 3
8
The Intercept. The Story of Mathew Golsteyn
9
Fayetteville Observer. Army Revokes Silver Star for Fort Bragg Officer
10
New York Times. Trump, Hegseth, and the Pardon Power
11
NBC News. Green Beret Says He Was Charged With Murder Because of Fox News Interview
12
ABC News. Green Beret Charged With Murder of Suspected Taliban Bombmaker
13
NBC News. Green Beret Wants Murder Case Dropped
14
New York Times. Trump, Hegseth, and the Pardon Power
15
New York Times. How War-Crime Accusations Against Green Berets Were Denied and Buried
16
Business Insider. Golsteyn’s Lawyer Said Trump Should Toss War Crimes Case
17
ABC News. Green Beret’s Attorney Welcomes Trump Offer to Review Murder Case
18
Time. Trump’s Pardons of Soldiers and War
19
Trump White House Archives. Statement From the Press Secretary
20
NBC News. Trump Dismisses Murder Charge Against Green Beret
21
ABC News. Trump Issues Pardons for Service Members Accused of War Crimes
22
New York City Bar Association. Report on Pardoned War Criminals
23
Task and Purpose. Trump Pardons War Crimes Reactions
24
Politico. Golsteyn Denied Special Forces Tab Despite Trump Pardon
25
The Hill. Army General Refuses to Restore Special Forces Tab
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ABC News. Top Democrat Presses Hegseth on Supporting Accused War Criminals