Why Is Chelsea Manning in Prison Again
Former war machine intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning speaks to reporters in Virginia on Thursday. After Manning refused to testify earlier a yard jury, U.Southward. District Judge Anthony Trenga said she was in antipathy of court and ordered her back to jail. Eric Baradat/AFP/Getty Images hide explanation
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Eric Baradat/AFP/Getty Images
Onetime military intelligence annotator Chelsea Manning speaks to reporters in Virginia on Thursday. After Manning refused to testify before a g jury, U.S. Commune Judge Anthony Trenga said she was in antipathy of court and ordered her back to jail.
Eric Baradat/AFP/Getty Images
Onetime Ground forces intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning was sent dorsum to jail Thursday afterward refusing for a second time to comply with a 1000 jury investigating WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange.
"Facing jail again, potentially today, doesn't alter my opinion," Manning told reporters in Alexandria, Va., before U.Southward. District Judge Anthony Trenga said she was in contempt of court.
"I will non cooperate with this or any other thousand jury," Manning insisted. "Then it doesn't matter what it is or what the example is, I'm just not going to comply or cooperate."
Manning said prosecutors had put her in an incommunicable position despite the Justice Department granting her immunity from self-incrimination.
In addition to being held in custody for the duration of the 1000 jury's investigation or until Manning testifies, the judge ordered her to exist fined $500 every mean solar day that she is in custody afterwards 30 days and $1,000 every day in custody later sixty days, according to a argument by Manning's lawyers.
Moira Meltzer-Cohen, a lawyer representing Manning, spoke of her disappointment. "It is telling that the United States has always been more concerned with the disclosure of those [leaked] documents than with their damning substance," she told reporters.
She went on to say that the Trump assistants was "obsessed with unwinding Obama'south legacy, from wellness care to Chelsea's substitution."
Manning was released from a military prison in Kansas in 2017, serving most vii years of what was one time a 35-year prison term. Sometime President Barack Obama shortened her judgement before leaving part.
In 2013, Manning pleaded guilty to leaking a trove of war machine reports and State Section cables to WikiLeaks.
Bug resurfaced for Manning in March subsequently she refused to testify to a one thousand jury investigating WikiLeaks and was jailed. In Apr, Assange was booted from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, then arrested by British police and charged by the U.South. Justice Department.
An indictment alleges that he conspired with Manning to access classified documents, helping her to crack a computer password.
At the time, Manning'due south attorneys argued that the Justice Department'southward filed charges against Assange demonstrated that prosecutors did not actually demand Manning to provide evidence.
Assange remains in England and has vowed to fight extradition to the Us. Swedish prosecutors have reopened an inquiry into rape allegations against him and are seeking to extradite Assange to Sweden.
Manning was released last week later on a grand jury's term expired. She was in jail for more than sixty days and 28 of them were spent in alone solitude weather condition, according to her lawyers.
Just her freedom was curt-lived. Prosecutors at the U.S. Attorney'due south Office in the Eastern Commune of Virginia quickly issued another subpoena for her to appear before a different thousand jury panel "for [the] same questions," according to a tweet posted on her account terminal calendar week.
U.S. Chaser G. Zachary Terwilliger told reporters on Th that prosecutors had "bent over backwards" to run into Manning's medical needs and schedule in the hopes of receiving her testimony.
"The only thing that is being asked of her is to come answer questions truthfully," he said. "As someone who received the incredible gift of a commutation, who is literally given 28 years of her life back, she now refuses to simply answer questions as part of our constitutional criminal justice process."
Source: https://www.npr.org/2019/05/17/724133556/chelsea-manning-sent-back-to-jail-for-refusing-to-testify-before-grand-jury