Lawyers for Chelsea Manning appealed her conviction on Thursday, calling it “grossly unfair and unprecedented” and arguing that “no whistleblower in American history has been sentenced this harshly.”
Manning was convicted of six counts of espionage by a military court in 2013 and is currently serving a 35-year sentence in military prison.
In January 2010, while serving as an Army intelligence analyst overseas, Manning – then known as Bradley — sent hundreds of thousands of documents about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to WikiLeaks. The documents revealed dramatically higher numbers of civilian casualties than were publicly reported and featured a video of Apache attack helicopters in Baghdad gunning down two Reuters journalists.
Manning’s treatment in military court came under fire from journalists and free speech advocates. Because she was indicted under the Espionage Act, she was not allowed to raise the public interest value of her disclosures as a defense.
In the 209-page legal brief made public on Thursday, lawyers for Manning questioned the testimony of military officials at her trial, arguing that their claims of harm were “speculative” and “provided no indication” of actual harm, which they said had a “highly prejudicial” effect on the trial.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed an amicus brief arguing that applying the Espionage Act to whistleblowers is unconstitutional and “furnishes the government with a tool for selective prosecution.”
The ACLU brief cites the example of Gen. David Petraeus, a former Army general and CIA director, who gave eight notebooks filled with classified information to his biographer, who he was sleeping with. Petraeus was not charged under the Espionage Act, accepted a plea deal for two years probation and a $100,000 fine, and kept his security clearance.
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has cited Manning’s treatment and trial as a key reason for not returning to the United States.
[Disclosure: First Look Media Works, Inc., publisher of The Intercept, made a $50,000 matching-fund donation to Chelsea Manning’s legal defense fund through its Press Freedom Litigation Fund, and Glenn Greenwald, a founding editor of The Intercept, donated $10,000.]
Foi muito bom te tirado ela do poder eu apraudo o juiz mora por tudo isto que fez
Thank you for continuing to cover Manning’s story and donating to his/her defense.
Of course she is in prison, so harder to reach than Snowden is, but it’s been disheartening how much less coverage her case has gotten than has his and how reflexively people say “well Manning was in the army, so that’s different” as if it were an affirmative duty of soldiers to hide evidence of war crimes. It almost feels — and this is not to blame Snowden at all, in fact he’s been really good about expressing solidarity with Manning — as if people do a kind of triangulation of wrongness such that they might concede “hey Snowden’s a real whistleblower” but then keep insisting Manning is a bridge too far, sort of as a way of normalizing the torture/secrecy/surveillance horrors of the whole post-9/11 period. It’s kind of like a comfy formula (“I’m against some stuff, but not other stuff, of all of that stuff, some of which it now seems evident is bad stuff”). Who knows how long it will take for people to realize it was all bad stuff. I sent Manning a newspaper article about Pepe Mujica — from “terrorist guerilla” prisoner of the state to president of his nation — just to remind her life is long and history always in motion. But she’s so young, I hope her story starts to shift sooner than his did. (I have no idea if she got it, it’s not like we correspond, I just sent it in hopes it would get to her).
Let stories like this be your reminder to throw her a few bucks for legal defense or goodie packages now and then. Being locked up sucks, show your support.
How much did you give?
Overall, donations to Chelsea Manning’s various legal defense funds have been more than ample. The principal U.S. fund, hosted by Courage to Resist, collected more than $1.5 million during Manning’s court-martial phase, and has received another $432,267 for her initial appeal phase. Additionally, Freedom of the Press Foundation raised $170,067, including extraordinarily generous matching donations of $50K by First Look Media and $10K from Glenn Greenwald. Together these two funds have collected $602,334—three times the $200K cost of Manning’s first-level appeal as estimated by her lead appellate attorney Nancy Hollander. Several foreign organizations have also raised money for Manning’s appeal, but I am unaware of any accounting for those funds.
On one hand, he released classified information, he definitely deserved to be prosecuted. However, and this is the big “on the other hand”, intent, route, and what was released show him to be a whistle blower rather than an enemy agent. There’s a lot of material that seems to be questionable as to whether it should have been classified. embarrassment and the covering up of possible crimes are not legitimate reasons to classify information, yet we are seeing this type of information time and time again in leaked documents.
Good point. Every private in the army should be able to decide what should or should not be classified.
It is obvious that the Espionage Act is unconstitutional based on the convincing arguments laid out in the amicus petition submitted along with Manning’s appeal. Unfortunately it is just as obvious that the espionage act was one of the early steps in the sidelining of the rule of law in the US, and it is also obvious that in such cases, US courts no longer adhere to the rule of law, and won’t this time either.
It’s obvious that the whole country is unconstitutional. Thanks for your analysis.
To reiterate: this is the first level of military appellate courts, and after this is the US Court of Appeals of the Armed Forces. I don’t hold out much hope for the Army court but the next level may be different. USCAAF is known to quash verdicts if there has been misconduct in the court-martial, notably unlawful command influence, and Obama’s declarations as to Pvt. Manning’s guilt qualify. The three-year delay between arrest and trial is also a breach of regulations and due process, and her mistreatment in pretrial custody, would also qualify as grounds for quashing the verdict on procedural grounds, rather than on the merits of the charges themselves.
But it’s slow. We’re just about exactly six years since her arrest, three years since conviction, and I’m guessing the Army appeals may take the rest of this year, before it goes on to USCAAF if unsuccessful.
Nixon declares Manson guilty…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khvt8x5ddTE
Manson was tried under Californian State law not any Federal Law and most definitely not by the US Army, as such no comparison can be made in relation to the cases! As the President is the Commander in Chief of the Military his comments can be inferred as orders, or at least career guide
lines!
Both cases were prejudiced by an assertion of purported guilt by a president.
There’s a difference. The US military courts have their own case law, and unlawful command influence (UCI) is a major doctrine. Since the chain of command convenes courts-martial, rather than maintain standing criminal courts, the UCMJ, the Manual for Courts Martial and the case law seeks to avoid the appearance that the commanders are influencing the trials; their job is simply to charge the accused and start the process.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_command_influence
You can google UCI and find plenty, certainly at the USCAAF website. There’s also the Military Justice Reports, if your Westlaw can access it. In any event, such prejudice in military courts is not a nebulous concept as with the Manson incident, but has a very well-defined remedy available.
(PS. A better Nixon simile would have been his tampering with the Calley court-martial, but there he was seeking to get Lt. Calley off, not pronounce him guilty on the charges).
Very interesting stuff. Thanks for the clarification!
By unlawful command influence, I take you mean President Obama’s off-the-cuff remark in San Francisco on 21 Apr 2011 that Manning “broke the law.” I’d appreciate your comment as to why this was not mentioned during Manning’s 2013 court-martial and is likewise absent from her appeal filed on 18 May 2016. Speaking as a layman, my impression is that Manning’s attorneys at both levels are topnotch professionals. It seems improbable that they merely overlooked such an important issue.
They probably didn’t ignore it, and even if they don’t bring it up the military appellate courts might. There may be defects in the substantive case itself but they can also cite the Military Justice Reports on breaches of due process, UCI included. And now is the time they can begin raising it, now that it’s finally in appeals.
Obama’s statement wasn’t the only one about Manning’s guilt, two Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs also said as much, but Obama is the Commander in Chief and in the direct chain of command.
If, as you say, “now is the time they can begin raising it,” why haven’t they? Seems dicey to omit an issue from appellant’s first-level appeal brief on the chance that the second-level appellate court might raise it themselves. A more likely explanation, I suspect, is that Manning’s lawyers considered unlawful command influence and concluded the facts in this case do not support it.
Perhaps. But UCI isn’t something you might want to raise during the trial (court-martial) phase, since you’re accusing your forum of error. (“Coram nobis” is a writ accusing the court of error, BTW). You contest the accusation, and any side-appeals (interlocutory stuff) may be technical.
Only now are we before an appellate court, the first of two. And if you read the M.J. Reports you realize that the UCI and due-process rulings tend to cluster at USCAAF. You use the appropriate weaponry when the time comes.
Fiat justitia ruat coelum.
Like you, I am not an attorney. But let’s speculate that unlawful command influence will surface during the appeals process. Would the court assume UCI and require the government to disprove it? I closely followed Manning’s trial, and read every word of the unofficial transcripts posted each day online by Freedom of the Press Foundation. Naturally I’m not privy to what went on in closed sessions involving classified evidence and testimony. However, based on the public record, I saw no hint of UCI in Judge Lind’s conduct, which struck me as exemplary. How might this issue be litigated at the appellate level? On its face, UCI seems like a baseless and desperate smear of a distinguished military jurist.
Most of the “trial” was double plus secret. For years distinguished military MPs tortured Private Manning a la Abu Ghraib to get his “mind right” before the trial. Remember Mannings trial security detail (5 or 6 defensive backs to corral Cheleas looming daily threat to military insecurity?) and command staff securitys treatment of the press throughout the trial and the effing witness list of command yes men. Asserting UCI may be a hail mary but to argue any jurist (Judge Ito or Judge Lind) would be unaffected by the theatricality of that circus is an exercise in self deception.
Three are endless quotes from both party leaders that could be selected to point out how hypocritical they are when preaching American values as they blow up the planet, but this one really works:
Obama said “We turn Lady Liberty’s light to the world, and widen our circle of concern to say that all God’s children are worthy of our compassion and care”, this is especially hypocritical when you put it in context with the end of the video Manning released, which shows the helicopters firing into the van with children in it, which came to take those shot up to medical attention, so much for “God’s children are worthy of our compassion and care”.
Watch it again to remind you of how they keep the truth from us:
https://collateralmurder.wikileaks.org/
Save it to show your children and grandchildren before some war and fear monger gives their all to convince them they should go and fight for what we know is only to satisfy the profit, power, and greed motives of the most amoral.
Without Chelsea Manning we would never have known who really killed the Reuters photographer because our rulers would never have told us. If you don’t know but would like to know the video is on YouTube. It is titled Collateral Murder.
Private First Class Manning gets 30 years. General Patraeus gets a fine and probation. That’s how the whole country is run.
As an empire should be. General Petraeus is a hero. From his desk, he orchestrated war crimes and murders on a massive scale. Why should a mere soldier, who refused to participate in murders, and in fact exposed them, be afforded the same lenient treatment as the stalwart conquering hero, awash in blood up to his eyeballs.