How did Picard avoid disciplinary action after the events of First Contact?

I'm sure a Federation lawyer could make a decent case for Picard responding to distress reports or something like that. I also have a feeling that the gratitude of every civilian on Earth, every surviving member of the Federation fleet around Earth - basically everybody - it'd be hard to find a politician who wasn't willing to pardon Jean-Luc.

Part of me wants to respond in the true laconic fashion and just answer the rest of the questions with, "If..." But I'll go down the list anyway.

If the Enterprise had lost, the Borg would have assimilated Earth, decimated the Federation's fleet, and had a striking point from which to annihilate the remainder of the Federation. Picard acted because it was do-or-die, and if they had a Sovereign-class or not would be irrelevant in the face of such devastation and utter defeat.

They couldn't, a fact which was demonstrated at the battle. If this were used as a justification for why the admirals of the fleet ordered their most powerful vessel and most experienced crew to go watch paint dry while one of the most important battles in Starfleet history was fought, they'd look as stupid as you'd like to call 'em. Imagine the counter-question, "So, you were worried the captain of the Enterprise might still have a neural link, despite no substantiated evidence in the years and years of his service, including encounters with the Borg, after his assimilation? And you ordered that whole vessel away, not just her Captain?"

Picard ended the battle faster. The fleet were being eradicated. The "countless" crewmembers who died because he showed up was a smaller number than "all of them" - which was where they were headed. He saved lives by his actions. By stopping the Borg from taking Earth in the 24th c. and the 21st, he also saved several assimilations as well, since without his efforts *all* of humanity would have been enslaved by the Collective. He spent a few dozen (hundred?) lives to save billions.

Easy, he preserved the timeline, and saved Earth from being assimilated. I think it balances out whatever damage he and his crew might have done in Zefram Cochran's time.

I also noticed that the only people from the 21st century they told about the future were Zephram himself, and Lily. Everyone else in that shanty town was kept in the dark. There was no way Cochran or Lily were gonna tell any of their contemporaries about what they were told (or saw), considering they'd would have been labeled nutjobs.