Chelsea Manning

Early life Born in 1987 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Manning is the second child of Susan Fox, who is Welsh, and Brian Manning, an American. Brian had joined the United States Navy in 1974, at age 19, and served five years as an intelligence analyst. He met Susan while stationed in Wales at RAF Brawdy. Manning has an older sister. The couple returned to the U.S. in 1979, settling first in California. After moving near Crescent, Oklahoma, they bought a house with five acres of land, where they kept pigs and chickens. Manning's sister told the court-martial that both their parents were alcoholics, and that their mother drank continually while pregnant with Chelsea. Captain David Moulton, a Navy psychiatrist, told the court that Manning's facial features showed signs of fetal alcohol syndrome. The sister became Manning's principal caregiver, waking at night to prepare the baby's bottle. The court heard that Manning was fed only milk and baby food until the age of two. As an adult she reached and weighed around . Manning's father took a job as an information technology (IT) manager for a rental car agency, The Hertz Corporation, which required travel. The family lived several miles out of town, and Manning's mother was unable to drive. She spent her days drinking, while Manning was left largely to herself playing with Lego toys or on the computer. Brian stocked up on food before his trips and left signed checks that the sister mailed to pay the bills. A neighbor said that whenever Manning's elementary school went on field trips, she would give her own son extra food or money so he could make sure Manning had something to eat. Friends and neighbors considered the Mannings a troubled family. Parents' divorce, move to Wales As a child, Manning was opinionated about the intersection of religion and politics. For example, she invariably remained silent during the part of the Pledge of Allegiance that makes reference to God. In a 2011 interview, Manning's father said, "People need to understand that he's a young man that had a happy life growing up." He also said that Manning excelled at the saxophone, science, and computers, and created a website at the age of 10. Manning learned how to use PowerPoint, won the grand prize three years in a row at the local science fair, and in sixth grade, took top prize at a statewide quiz bowl. , Wales, where Manning went to secondary school A childhood friend of Manning's, speaking about a conversation they had when Manning was 13, said: "he told me he was gay." The friend also said that Manning's home life was not good and that her father was very controlling. Around this time, Manning's parents divorced. She and her mother, Susan, moved out of the house to a rented apartment in Crescent, Oklahoma. Susan's instability continued, and in 1998 she attempted suicide; Manning's sister drove their mother to the hospital, with the 11-year-old Manning sitting in the back of the car trying to make sure their mother was still breathing. Manning's interest in computers continued, and in 2003, she and a friend, James Kirkpatrick, set up an online message board, angeldyne.com, that offered games and music downloads. The only American at her school, and viewed as effeminate, Manning was bullied. In Oklahoma, she had come out to a few friends as gay, but was not open about it at school in Wales. The students frequently mocked her accent. and fearing her mother was becoming too ill to cope, Manning returned to the U.S. She moved in with her father, then living in Oklahoma City with his second wife and her child. Manning landed employment as a developer for the software company Zoto. She was apparently happy there, but was let go after four months. Her boss told The Washington Post that on a few occasions Manning had "just locked up" and would simply sit and stare, and in the end, communication became too difficult. The boss told the newspaper that "nobody's been taking care of this kid for a really long time." By then, Manning was living as an openly gay man. Her relationship with her father was apparently good, but there were problems between Manning and her stepmother. In March 2006, Manning reportedly threatened her stepmother with a knife during an argument about Manning's failure to get another job; her stepmother called the police, and Manning was asked to leave the house. Manning drove to Tulsa in a pickup truck her father had given her. At first she slept in it, before moving in with a friend from school. The two got jobs at Incredible Pizza in April. Manning moved on to Chicago before running out of money and again having nowhere to stay. Her mother arranged for Brian's sister, Debra, a lawyer in Potomac, Maryland, to take Manning in. American journalist and Manning biographer Denver Nicks wrote that the 15 months Manning spent with her aunt were among the stablest of her life. Manning had a boyfriend, took several low-paid jobs, and spent a semester studying history and English at Montgomery College but left after failing an exam. ==Military service==

Enlisting Manning's father spent weeks in 2007 asking her to consider joining the Army. Hoping to gain a college education through the G.I. Bill, and perhaps to study for a PhD in physics, she enlisted in September that year. She told her Army supervisor later that she had also hoped joining such a masculine environment would resolve her gender dysphoria. Six weeks after enlisting, she was sent to the discharge unit. She was allegedly being bullied, and according to another soldier, was having a breakdown. The soldier told The Guardian: "The kid was barely five foot ... [She] was a runt, so pick on [her]. [She's] crazy, pick on [her]. [She's] a faggot, pick on [her]. The [girl] took it from every side. [She] couldn't please anyone." Nicks writes that Manning, who was used to being bullied, fought back—if the drill sergeants screamed at her, she would scream at them—to the point where they started calling her "General Manning". The decision to discharge her was revoked, and she started basic training again in January 2008. After graduating in April, she moved to Fort Huachuca, Arizona, to attend Advanced Individual Training (AIT) for Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) 35F, intelligence analyst, receiving a TS/SCI security clearance (Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information). According to Nicks, this security clearance, combined with the digitization of classified information and the government's policy of sharing it widely, gave Manning access to an unprecedented amount of material. Nicks writes that Manning was reprimanded while at Fort Huachuca for posting three video messages to friends on YouTube in which she described the inside of the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) where she worked. Upon completion of her initial MOS course, Manning received the Army Service Ribbon and the National Defense Service Medal. Move to Fort Drum, deployment to Iraq In August 2008, Manning was sent to Fort Drum in Jefferson County, New York, where she joined the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, and trained for deployment to Iraq. Back at Fort Drum, she continued to display emotional problems and by August 2009 had been referred to an Army mental-health counselor. After four weeks at the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) in Fort Polk, Louisiana, Manning was deployed to Forward Operating Base Hammer, near Baghdad, arriving in October 2009. From her workstation there, she had access to SIPRNet (the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network) and JWICS (the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System). Two of her superiors had discussed not taking her to Iraq; it was felt she was a risk to herself and possibly others, according to a statement the Army later issued—but the shortage of intelligence analysts dictated their decision to take her. In November 2009, she was promoted from Private First Class to Specialist. Manning was by all accounts unhappy and isolated. Because of the military's "Don't ask, don't tell" (DADT) policy (in effect until September 20, 2011), she was unable to live as an openly gay man without risk of being discharged. Manning's working conditions in the military included 14- to 15-hour night shifts in a tightly packed, dimly lit room. On December 20, 2009, during a counseling session with two colleagues to discuss her poor time-keeping, Manning was told she would lose her one day off a week for persistent lateness. She responded by overturning a table, damaging a computer that was sitting on it. A sergeant moved Manning away from the weapons rack, and other soldiers pinned her arms behind her back and dragged her out of the room. Several witnesses to the incident believed her access to sensitive material ought to have been withdrawn at that point. The next month, January 2010, she began posting on Facebook that she felt hopeless and alone. Release of material to WikiLeaks Manning said her first contact with WikiLeaks was in January 2010, when she began to interact with them on IRC and Jabber. She had first noticed them toward the end of November 2009, when they posted 570,000 pager messages from the September 11 attacks. On January 5, 2010, Manning downloaded the 400,000 documents that became known as the Iraq War logs. She then copied it onto her personal computer. The next day, she wrote a message in a readme.txt file, which she told the court was initially intended for The Washington Post. Manning copied the files from her laptop to an SD card for her camera so that she could take it with her to the U.S. while on R&R leave. After her arrest, Manning's friend Tyler Watkins told Wired that Manning had said during the visit that she had found some sensitive information and was considering leaking it. In 2021, Manning said that while home on leave in 2010, she had reached out to her then-Congressman, Chris Van Hollen, but got no response. Manning contacted The Washington Post and The New York Times to ask whether they were interested in the material; the Post reporter did not sound interested, and the Times did not return the call. Manning decided to give it to WikiLeaks, and on February 3 sent them the Iraq and Afghan War logs via Tor. She returned to Iraq on February 11, with no acknowledgment from WikiLeaks that they had received the files. On or around February 18, she passed WikiLeaks a diplomatic cable, dated January 13, 2010, from the U.S. Embassy in Reykjavík, Iceland. She found the Baghdad helicopter attack ("Collateral murder") video in a Judge Advocate's directory and passed it to WikiLeaks on or around February 21. In late March, she sent them a video of the May 2009 Granai airstrike in Afghanistan; this was the video later removed and apparently destroyed by Daniel Domscheit-Berg when he left the organization. Between March 28 and April 9, she downloaded the 250,000 diplomatic cables and on April 10, uploaded them to a WikiLeaks dropbox. Manning told the court that, during her interaction with WikiLeaks on IRC and Jabber, she developed a friendship with someone there, believed to be Julian Assange (although neither knew the other's name), which she said made her feel she could be herself. Email to supervisor, recommended discharge On April 24, 2010, Manning sent an email to her supervisor, Master Sergeant Paul Adkins—with the subject line "My Problem"—saying she was suffering from gender identity disorder. She attached a photograph of herself dressed as a woman and with the filename breanna.jpg. She wrote: Adkins discussed the situation with Manning's therapists, but did not pass the email to anybody above him in his chain of command; he told Manning's court-martial that he was concerned the photograph would be disseminated among other staff. Captain Steven Lim, Manning's company commander, said he first saw the email after Manning's arrest, when information about hormone replacement therapy was found in Manning's room on base; at that point Lim learned that Manning had been calling herself Breanna. On May 7, according to Army witnesses, Manning was found curled in a fetal position in a storage cupboard; she had a knife at her feet and had cut the words "I want" into a vinyl chair. A few hours later she had an altercation with an intelligence analyst, Specialist Jihrleah Showman, during which she punched Showman in the face. The brigade psychiatrist recommended a discharge, referring to an "occupational problem and adjustment disorder". Manning's supervisor removed the bolt from her weapon, making it unable to fire, and she was sent to work in the supply office, although her security clearance remained in place. As punishment for the altercation with Showman, she was demoted from Specialist (E-4) to Private First Class (E-3) three days before her arrest on May 27. Ellen Nakashima writes that, on May 9, Manning contacted Jonathan Odell, a gay American novelist in Minneapolis, via Facebook, leaving a message that she wanted to speak to him in confidence; she said she had been involved in some "very high-profile events, albeit as a nameless individual thus far". On May 19, according to Army investigators, she emailed Eric Schmiedl, a mathematician she had met in Boston, and told him she had been the source of the Baghdad airstrike video. Two days later, she began the series of chats with Adrian Lamo that led to her arrest. ==Publication of leaked material==

and Daniel Domscheit-Berg at the Chaos Communication Congress, Berlin, December 2009 According to Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a former WikiLeaks spokesperson, part of the site's security concept was that they did not know who their sources were. The New York Times wrote in December 2010 that the U.S. government was trying to discover whether Assange had been a passive recipient of material from Manning or had encouraged or helped her to extract the files, in which case he could be charged with conspiracy. Manning told Lamo in May 2010 that she had developed a working relationship with Assange, communicating directly with him using an encrypted Internet conferencing service, but knew little about him. WikiLeaks did not identify Manning as their source. Army investigators found pages of chats on Manning's computer between Manning and someone believed to be Assange. On February 18, 2010, WikiLeaks posted the first of the material from Manning, the diplomatic cable from the U.S. Embassy in Reykjavík, a document now known as "Reykjavik13". On March 15, WikiLeaks posted a 32-page report written in 2008 by the U.S. Department of Defense about WikiLeaks itself, and on March 29 it posted U.S. State Department profiles of politicians in Iceland. Baghdad airstrike video in early 2010. WikiLeaks named the Baghdad airstrike video "Collateral Murder", and Assange released it on April 5, 2010, during a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Afghan War logs, Iraq War logs On July 25, 2010, WikiLeaks and three media partners—The New York Times, The Guardian, and Der Spiegel—began publishing the 91,731 documents that, in their entirety, became known as the Afghan War Logs. (Around 77,000 of these had been published as of May 2012.) This was followed on October 22, 2010, by 391,832 classified military reports covering the period January 2004 to December 2009, which became known as the Iraq War Logs. Nicks writes that the publication of the former was a watershed moment, the "beginning of the information age exploding upon itself". Other leaks Manning was also responsible for the "Cablegate" leak of 251,287 State Department cables, written by 271 American embassies and consulates in 180 countries, dated December 1966 to February 2010. Assange passed the cables to his three media partners, plus El País and others, and they were published in stages from November 28, 2010, with the names of sources removed. WikiLeaks said it was the largest set of confidential documents ever released into the public domain. WikiLeaks published the remaining cables, unredacted, on September 1, 2011, after David Leigh and Luke Harding of The Guardian inadvertently published the passphrase for a file that was still online; Nicks writes that an Ethiopian journalist consequently had to leave his country, and the U.S. government said it had to relocate several sources. Manning was accused of being the source of the Guantanamo Bay files leak obtained by WikiLeaks in 2010 and published by The New York Times and The Guardian in April 2011. Manning said she gave WikiLeaks a video in March 2010 of the Granai airstrike in Afghanistan. The airstrike occurred on May 4, 2009, in the village of Granai, Afghanistan, killing 86 to 147 Afghan civilians. The video was never published; Assange said in March 2013 that Daniel Domscheit-Berg had taken it with him when he left WikiLeaks and had apparently destroyed it. ==Manning and Adrian Lamo==

First contact (left) and Wired Kevin Poulsen (right) in 2001. The person in the middle, Kevin Mitnick, had no involvement in the Manning case. In 2002, Poulsen told The New York Times that Lamo had gained unauthorized access to its network; he then wrote the story up for SecurityFocus. Lamo would hack into a system, tell the organization, then offer to fix its security, often using Poulsen as a go-between. Lamo said Manning sent him several encrypted emails on May 20. He said he was unable to decrypt them but replied anyway and invited the emailer to chat on AOL IM. Lamo said he later turned the emails over to the FBI without having read them. Chats In a series of chats between May 21 and 25, Manning—using the handle "bradass87"—told Lamo that she had leaked classified material. She introduced herself as an Army intelligence analyst, and within 17 minutes, without waiting for a reply, alluded to the leaks. Lamo replied several hours later. He said: "I'm a journalist and a minister. You can pick either, and treat this as a confession or an interview (never to be published) & enjoy a modicum of legal protection." They talked about restricted material in general, then Manning made her first explicit reference to the leaks: "This is what I do for friends." She linked to a section of the May 21, 2010, version of Wikipedia's article on WikiLeaks, which described the WikiLeaks release in March that year of a Department of Defense report on WikiLeaks itself. She added "the one below that is mine too"; the section below in the same article referred to the leak of the Baghdad airstrike ("Collateral Murder") video. Manning said she felt isolated and fragile, and was reaching out to someone she hoped might understand. Both advised Lamo to go to the authorities. His friend informed the Army's Criminal Investigation Command (CID), and Lamo was contacted by CID agents shortly thereafter. The hacker community largely ostracized him afterward, but Nicks argues that it was thanks to Lamo that the government had months to ameliorate any harm caused by the release of the diplomatic cables. On May 25, Lamo met with FBI and Army investigators in California and showed them the chat logs. On or around that date he also passed the story to Kevin Poulsen of Wired, and on May 27 gave him the chat logs and Manning's name under embargo. He met with the FBI again that day, at which point they told him Manning had been arrested in Iraq the day before. Poulsen and Kim Zetter broke the news of the arrest in Wired on June 6. Wired published around 25% of the chat logs on June 6 and 10, and the full logs in July 2011. ==Legal proceedings==

Arrest and charges The Army's Criminal Investigation Command arrested Manning on May 27, 2010, and four days later transferred her to Camp Arifjan in Kuwait. She was charged with several offenses in July, replaced by 22 charges in March 2011, including violations of Articles 92 and 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), and of the Espionage Act. The most serious charge was "aiding the enemy", a capital offense, although prosecutors said they would not seek the death penalty. Another charge, which Manning's defense called a "made-up offense" but of which she was found guilty, read that Manning "wantonly [caused] to be published on the internet intelligence belonging to the U.S. government, having knowledge that intelligence published on the internet is accessible to the enemy". Detention While in Kuwait, Manning was placed on suicide watch after her behavior caused concern. She was moved from Kuwait to the Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, on July 29, 2010, and classified as a maximum custody detainee with Prevention of Injury (POI) status. POI status is a less extreme form of suicide watch, entailing checks by guards every five minutes. Her lawyer, David Coombs, a former military attorney, said Manning was not allowed to sleep between 5 am (7 am on weekends) and 8 pm, and was made to stand or sit up if she tried to. She was required to remain visible at all times, including at night, which entailed no access to sheets, no pillow except one built into her mattress, and a blanket designed not to be shredded. Her cell was 6 × 12 ft (1.8 x 3.6 m) with no window, containing a bed, toilet, and sink. The jail had 30 cells built in a U shape, and although detainees could talk to one another, they were unable to see each other. Her lawyer said the guards behaved professionally and had not tried to harass or embarrass Manning. She was allowed to walk for up to one hour a day, meals were taken in the cell, and she was shackled during visits. There was access to television when it was placed in the corridor, and she was allowed to keep one magazine and one book. Because she was in pretrial detention, she received full pay. On January 18, 2011, after Manning had an altercation with the guards, the commander of Quantico classified her as a suicide risk. Manning said the guards had begun issuing conflicting commands, such as "turn left, don't turn left", and upbraiding her for responding to commands with "yes" instead of "aye". Shortly afterward, she was placed on suicide watch, had her clothing and eyeglasses removed, and was required to remain in her cell 24 hours a day. The suicide watch was lifted on January 21 after her lawyer complained, and the brig commander who ordered it was replaced. On March 2, she was told that her request for removal of POI status—which entailed among other things sleeping wearing only boxer shorts—had been denied. Her lawyer said Manning joked to the guards that, if she wanted to harm herself, she could do so with her underwear or her flip-flops. The comment resulted in Manning's being ordered to strip naked in her cell that night and sleep without clothing. On the following morning only, Manning stood naked for inspection. After her lawyer protested and some media attention, Manning was issued a sleeping garment on or before March 11. The detention conditions prompted national and international concern. Juan E. Méndez, United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture, told The Guardian that the U.S. government's treatment of Manning was "cruel, inhuman and degrading". In January 2011, Amnesty International asked the British government to intervene because of Manning's status as a British citizen by descent, although Manning's lawyer said Manning did not regard herself as a British citizen. On March 10, State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley criticized Manning's treatment as "ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid". The next day, President Obama responded to Crowley's comments, saying the Pentagon had assured him that Manning's treatment was "appropriate and meet[s] our basic standards". Under political pressure, Crowley resigned three days after his comments. On March 15, 295 members of the academic legal community signed a statement arguing that Manning was being subjected to "degrading and inhumane pretrial punishment" and criticizing Obama's comments. On April 20, the Pentagon transferred Manning to the medium-custody Midwest Joint Regional Correctional Facility, at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where she was placed in an 80-square-foot cell with a window and a normal mattress, able to mix with other pretrial detainees and keep personal objects in her cell. Evidence presented at Article 32 hearing In April 2011, a panel of experts, having completed a medical and mental evaluation of Manning, ruled that she was fit to stand trial. An Article 32 hearing, presided over by Lieutenant Colonel Paul Almanza, was convened on December 16, 2011, at Fort Meade, Maryland; after the hearing, Almanza recommended that Manning be referred to a general court-martial. She was arraigned on February 23, 2012, and declined to enter a plea. During the Article 32 hearing, the prosecution, led by Captain Ashden Fein, presented 300,000 pages of documents in evidence, including chat logs and classified material. The court heard from two Army investigators: Special Agent David Shaver, head of the digital forensics and research branch of the Army's Computer Crime Investigative Unit (CCIU); and Mark Johnson, a digital forensics contractor from ManTech International, who works for the CCIU. They testified that they had found 100,000 State Department cables on a workplace computer Manning had used between November 2009 and May 2010; 400,000 military reports from Iraq and 91,000 from Afghanistan on an SD card found in her room in her aunt's home in Potomac, Maryland; and 10,000 cables on her personal MacBook Pro and storage devices that they said had not been given to WikiLeaks because a file was corrupted. They also recovered 14 to 15 pages of encrypted chats in unallocated space on Manning's MacBook hard drive between Manning and someone believed to be Assange. Two of the chat handles, which used the Berlin Chaos Computer Club's domain (ccc.de), were associated with the names Julian Assange and Nathaniel Frank. The investigators testified they had also recovered an exchange from May 2010 between Manning and Eric Schmiedl, a Boston mathematician, in which Manning said she was the source of the Baghdad helicopter attack ("Collateral Murder") video. Johnson said there had been two attempts to delete the material from the MacBook. The operating system had been reinstalled in January 2010, and on or around January 31, 2010, an attempt had been made to erase the hard drive by doing a "zero-fill", which involves overwriting material with zeroes. The material was recovered after the overwrite attempts from unallocated space. Manning's lawyers argued that the government had overstated the harm the release of the documents had caused and had overcharged Manning to force her to testify against Assange. The defense also raised questions about whether Manning's confusion over her gender identity affected her behavior and decision making. Guilty plea, trial, sentence The judge, Army Colonel Denise Lind, ruled in January 2013 that any sentence would be reduced by 112 days because of the treatment Manning received at Quantico. On February 28, Manning pleaded guilty to 10 of the 22 charges. The trial began on June 3, 2013. On July 30, Manning was convicted on 17 of the 22 charges in their entirety, including five counts of espionage and theft, and an amended version of four other charges; she was acquitted of aiding the enemy. The sentencing phase began the next day. A defense psychiatrist, testifying to Manning's motives, suggested a different agenda: On August 14, Manning apologized to the court: "I am sorry that my actions hurt people. I'm sorry that they hurt the United States. I am sorry for the unintended consequences of my actions. When I made these decisions I believed I was going to help people, not hurt people. ... At the time of my decisions, I was dealing with a lot of issues." Manning's offenses carried a maximum sentence of 90 years. The government asked for 60 years as a deterrent to others, while Manning's lawyer asked for no more than 25 years. On August 21 she was sentenced to 35 years in prison, reduction in rank to private (private E-1 or Pvt), forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and a dishonorable discharge. She was given credit for 1,293 days of pretrial confinement, including 112 days for her treatment at Quantico, and would have been eligible for parole after serving one-third of the sentence. by The Guardian and as "excessive" by The New York Times. On April 14, 2014, Manning's request for clemency was denied; the case went to the United States Army Court of Criminal Appeals for further review. Requests for release On September 3, 2013, Manning's lawyer filed a Petition for Commutation of Sentence to President Obama through the pardon attorney at the Department of Justice and Secretary of the Army John M. McHugh. The petition contended that Manning's disclosures did not cause any "real damage", and that the documents in question did not merit protection, as they were not sensitive. The request included a supporting letter from Amnesty International which said that Manning's leaks had exposed violations of human rights. David Coombs's cover letter touched on Manning's role as a whistleblower, asking that Manning be granted a full pardon or that her sentence be reduced to time served. In April 2015, Amnesty International posted online a letter from Manning in which she wrote: "I am now preparing for my court-martial appeal before the first appeals court. The appeal team, with my attorneys Nancy Hollander and Vince Ward, are hoping to file our brief before the court in the next six months. We have already had success in getting the court to respect my gender identity by using feminine pronouns in the court filings (she, her, etc.)." In November 2016, Manning made a formal petition to Obama to reduce her 35-year sentence to the six years of time she had already served. On December 10, 2016, a White House petition to commute her sentence reached the minimum 100,000 signatures required for an official response. Lawyers familiar with clemency applications said in December 2016 that a pardon was unlikely; the request did not fit the usual criteria. Commutation, release, and appeal In January 2017, a Justice Department source said that Manning was on Obama's short list for a possible commutation. On January 17, Obama commuted all but four months of Manning's remaining sentence. In 2021, Forbes reported that Obama's commutation of Manning's sentence was "unconditional". Notwithstanding her commutation, Manning's military appeal would continue, with her attorney saying, "We fight in her appeal to clear her name." On January 26, 2017, in her first column for The Guardian since the commutation, Manning lamented that Obama's political opponents consistently refused to compromise, resulting in "very few permanent accomplishments" during his time in office. As The Guardian summarized it, she saw Obama's legacy as "a warning against not being bold enough". In response, President Donald Trump tweeted that Manning was an "ungrateful traitor" and should "never have been released". Manning was released from Fort Leavenworth's detention center at approximately 2 a.m. Central Time on May 17, 2017. Although sentenced during her court-martial to be dishonorably discharged, Manning was reportedly returned to active unpaid "excess leave" status while her appeal was pending. On May 31, 2018, the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals upheld Manning's 2013 court-martial conviction of violating the Espionage Act. The court rejected Manning's contention that the statute was too vague to provide fair notice of the criminal nature of disclosing classified documents. "The facts of this case", the three-judge panel ruled, "leave no question as to what constituted national defense information. Appellant's training and experience indicate, without any doubt, she was on notice and understood the nature of the information she was disclosing and how its disclosure could negatively affect national defense." The court also rejected Manning's assertion that her actions in disclosing classified information related to national security are protected by the First Amendment. Manning, the court found, "had no First Amendment right to make the disclosures—doing so not only violated the nondisclosure agreements she signed but also jeopardized national security". On May 30, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces denied Manning's petition for grant of review of the decision of the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals. 2019 jailing for contempt during the coronavirus pandemic in April 2020, forty days after her release from jailIn February 2019, Manning received a subpoena to testify in a U.S. government case proceeding under prosecutors in Virginia against Assange, the existence of which had been accidentally revealed in November 2018. Manning objected to the secrecy of the grand jury proceedings and announced she would refuse to testify, saying: "We’ve seen this power abused countless times to target political speech. I have nothing to contribute to this case and I resent being forced to endanger myself by participating in this predatory practice." She added that she had provided all the information she had in 2013 during her court martial and that she stood by her previous answers. On March 8, 2019, Manning was found in contempt of court and jailed in the women's wing of a detention center in Alexandria, Virginia, with the judge conditioning her release on her testifying or the grand jury concluding its work. Manning was initially held in administrative segregation for 28 days until she was placed in the general population on April 5, 2019. Her supporters described her period in administrative segregation as "effective solitary confinement" as it involved "up to 22 hours each day spent in isolation". Officials at the facility said that administrative segregation was used for safety reasons and that prisoners still had access to recreation and social visits during that time. After the grand jury's term expired, Manning was released on May 9, 2019, and was served with a subpoena to appear before a new grand jury on May 16. She again refused to testify, saying that she "believe[d] this grand jury seeks to undermine the integrity of public discourse with the aim of punishing those who expose any serious, ongoing, and systemic abuses of power by this government". The court ordered her returned to jail and fined $500 for each day over 30 days and $1,000 for each day over 60 days. In June 2019, she challenged the fines because of inability to pay. On December 30, 2019, United Nations special rapporteur Nils Melzer released a letter dated November 1, 2019, in which he accused the U.S. government of torturing Manning, called for her immediate release, and called for her court fines to be canceled or reimbursed. On March 11, 2020, Manning attempted suicide two days before she was scheduled to appear before a judge on a motion to terminate sanctions. Alexandria Sheriff Dana Lawhorne reported that Manning was safe and her lawyers said she was recovering in a hospital. He denied a request by Manning's lawyers to vacate her accrued fines of $256,000, which he ordered due and payable immediately. The same day, a supporter launched an online crowdfunding campaign to defray Manning's fines. Within 48 hours, nearly 7,000 donations ranging from $5 to $10,000 were received, totaling $267,000. A separate crowdfund by the same supporter raised an additional $50,000 to help pay Manning's post-incarceration living expenses. In January 2021, in refusing to extradite Assange to the U.S. for trial on federal charges, UK District Judge Vanessa Baraitser cited Manning's March 2020 suicide attempt to support finding that, if exposed to the "harsh conditions" of incarceration in America, "Assange's mental health would deteriorate, causing him to commit suicide". ==Reaction to disclosures==

, June 2011 The publication of the leaked material, particularly the diplomatic cables, attracted in-depth coverage worldwide, with several governments blocking websites that contained embarrassing details. Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger said: "I can't think of a time when there was ever a story generated by a news organization where the White House, the Kremlin, Chávez, India, China, everyone in the world was talking about these things. ... I've never known a story that created such mayhem that wasn't an event like a war or a terrorist attack." United States Navy Admiral Michael Mullen, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the leaks had placed American soldiers and Afghan informants in danger. Journalist Glenn Greenwald argued that Manning was the most important whistleblower since Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971. In an impromptu questioning session after a fundraiser, captured on a cellphone video, President Obama said that Manning "broke the law", which was later criticized as "unlawful command influence" on Manning's upcoming trial. In 2011, Manning and WikiLeaks were credited in part, along with news reporters and political analysts, as catalysts for the Arab Spring that began in December 2010, when waves of protesters rose up against rulers across the Middle East and North Africa, after the leaked cables exposed government corruption. But in 2012, James L. Gelvin, an American scholar of Middle Eastern history, wrote: "After the outbreak [January 2011] of the Egyptian uprising ... journalists decided to abandon another term they had applied to the Tunisian uprising: the first 'WikiLeaks Revolution,' a title they had adopted that overemphasized the role played by the leaked American cables about corruption in provoking the protests." A Washington Post editorial asked why an apparently unstable Army private had been able to access and transfer sensitive material in the first place. According to her biographer, the American far-right saw Manning's sexuality as evidence that gay people were unfit for military service, while the American mainstream thought of Manning as a gay soldier driven mad by bullying. A Defense Department report a year after the breach found that Manning's document leaks had no significant strategic impact on US war efforts. The heavily redacted final report was not published until June 2017, after a Freedom of Information request by investigative reporter Jason Leopold. ==Awards and tributes==

In 2011, the German Section of the International Association of Lawyers against Nuclear Arms and the Federation of German Scientists awarded Manning a "Whistleblowerpreis". While still in detention in 2011, Graham Nash of Crosby, Stills and Nash released a song, "Almost Gone (The Ballad of Bradley Manning)", in reference to her deteriorated mental state. In 2012, she received a "People's Choice Award" from Global Exchange. In 2013, the U.S. Peace Memorial Foundation awarded her The US Peace Prize "for conspicuous bravery, at the risk of his own freedom, above and beyond the call of duty". The same year, the International Peace Bureau awarded her the Sean MacBride Peace Prize. In 2014, Sam Adams Associates gave her the Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence. Icelandic and Swedish Pirate Party MPs nominated Manning and fellow whistleblower Edward Snowden for the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize. In 2013, Roots Action launched a petition nominating Manning for the prize that received more than 100,000 supporting signatures. In May 2015, Anything to Say?, an art installation made of mobile bronze statues of Manning, Snowden, and Assange, was placed at Berlin's Alexanderplatz for a weekend, as a "monument for courage". Germany's Green Party sponsored the sculpture, by Italian sculptor Davide Dormino. The installation was later exhibited in different European cities. In 2015, Paper magazine commissioned artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg to create 2D DNA phenotype portraits of Manning using DNA collected from cheek swabs and hair clippings Manning sent the artist while incarcerated. 3D printed versions of the portraits premiered at the World Economic Forum in 2016. In the summer of 2017, Manning (by then released from prison) and Dewey-Hagborg presented their collaboration at an exhibition at the Fridman Gallery in New York City. In September 2017, Manning accepted the EFF Pioneer Award in recognition of her actions as a whistleblower and for her work as an advocate for government transparency and transgender rights. In November, she was named 2017 Newsmaker of the Year by Out, which noted her "whistle-in-the-wind tenacity that belies the trauma she's had to contend with". Later that month, Bitch listed her among the first-ever "Bitch 50" impactful creators, artists, and activists in pop culture, recognizing her as "a leading voice for transgender and healthcare rights". In December, Foreign Policy honored Manning as one of its forty-eight 2017 Global Thinkers "for forcing the United States to question who is a traitor and who is a hero". In October 2020, Manning shared with the German nonprofit investigative journalism organization CORRECT!V and Greece's anonymous Novartis whistleblowers the third annual European United Left–Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) prize for Journalists, Whistleblowers and Defenders of the Right to Information. The GUE/NGL posted a video of her acceptance from her home in Brooklyn, New York. ==Gender transition==

2010–2013 In an article written by Manning, she says her first public appearance as female was in February 2010 while on leave from her military duties; Manning was exhilarated to blend in as a woman. On August 22, 2013, the day after sentencing, Manning's attorney issued a press release to the Today show announcing that his client was a female, and asked that she be referred to by her new name of Chelsea and feminine pronouns. Manning's statement included the following: The news media split in its reaction to Manning's request; some organizations used the new name and pronouns, and others continued to use the former ones. Advocacy groups such as GLAAD, the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) encouraged media outlets to refer to Manning by her self-identified name and pronoun. 2014 In April 2014, the Kansas District Court granted a petition from Manning for a legal name change. An Army spokesman stated that while the Army would update personnel records to acknowledge the name change, the military would continue to regard Manning as a male. In July, the Federal Bureau of Prisons rejected a request by the Army to transfer Manning from the USDB to a civilian facility for treatment of her gender dysphoria. Instead, the Army kept Manning in military custody and said it would begin rudimentary gender treatment, which could include allowing her to wear female undergarments and possibly receive hormone treatments. On August 12, 2014, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Manning's civilian attorney David Coombs said Manning was not receiving treatment for her gender identity condition as previously approved by Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. They notified the USDB, Hagel and other Defense Department officials that a lawsuit would be filed if they did not confirm by September 4 that treatment would be provided. On August 22, Army spokeswoman Lt. Col. Alayne Conway told NBC News, "The Department of Defense has approved a request by Army leadership to provide required medical treatment for an inmate diagnosed with gender dysphoria." Although Conway would not discuss "the medical needs of an individual", she did say, "In general terms, the initial stages of treatment for individuals with gender dysphoria include psychotherapy and elements of the 'real life experience' therapy. Treatment for the condition is highly individualized and generally is sequential and graduated." The Army declined to say when treatment might begin. In September, Manning filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Washington, D.C., against Secretary of Defense Hagel, claiming she had "been denied access to medically necessary treatment" for gender dysphoria. She sued to be allowed to grow her hair longer and use cosmetics, and to receive hormone treatments "to express her female gender". 2015 On February 12, 2015, USA Today reported that the commandant of the USDB wrote in a February 5 memo, "After carefully considering the recommendation that (hormone treatment) is medically appropriate and necessary, and weighing all associated safety and security risks presented, I approve adding (hormone treatment) to Inmate Manning's treatment plan." According to USA Today, Manning remained a soldier, and the decision to administer hormone therapy was a first for the Army. Manning was not allowed to grow her hair longer. Her ACLU attorney, Chase Strangio, said that the delay in approving her hormone treatment "came with a significant cost to Chelsea and her mental health". On March 5, in response to Manning's request for an order compelling the military to use pronouns that conform to her chosen gender identity, the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals ruled, "Reference to appellant in all future formal papers filed before this court and all future orders and decisions issued by this court shall either be neutral, e.g., Private First Class Manning or appellant, or employ a feminine pronoun." On March 14, the digital library host Cryptome posted an unsigned public copy of a court document, filed March 10, wherein the parties to Manning's September 2014 lawsuit against Secretary of Defense Hagel agreed to stay proceedings for seven months, after which time they would address how the litigation should proceed in light of Manning's status at that time. The document revealed that the Army was then providing Manning with weekly psychotherapy, including psychotherapy specific to gender dysphoria; cross-sex hormone therapy; female undergarments; the ability to wear prescribed cosmetics in her daily life at the USDB; and speech therapy. In April 2015, Amnesty International posted online a letter from Manning in which she said: In December, Manning's attorneys reported that her military doctor refused Manning's request to change the gender on her military records to female. In January 2017, Manning wrote to The New York Times that although months had passed, she had still not seen a surgeon. At the time of Manning's release from prison in May 2017, her attorney stressed that she would be pursuing her own medical care and "building her life on her own terms, separate from the military". Manning subsequently stated via her verified Twitter account that her healthcare from the military had stopped on May 16, 2017, and that she had secured a private health plan. She said her gender transition while in prison had cost "only $600 over 2 years", explaining that the Department of Defense "got meds at a markdown". Although the Army had agreed in September 2016 to allow her to have gender transition surgery, the operation was not performed before her release. On May 22, 2017, Manning's 2014 lawsuit seeking a federal court to order the Defense Department to provide hormone therapy and other treatment for her gender identity condition was dismissed because, her ACLU attorney explained, "she is free". On October 20, 2018, Manning tweeted a photograph of herself in a hospital bed reportedly recovering from gender reassignment surgery. "After almost a decade of fighting," she wrote, "thru prison, the courts, a hunger strike, and thru the insurance company—I finally got surgery this week". In March 2019, in the context of medical care provided during her re-incarceration, the news media continued to report that she had undergone gender reassignment surgery. In a declaration to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia filed on May 6, 2019, Manning formally attested that she underwent gender confirmation surgery in October 2018. ==Prison life==

In March 2015, Bloomberg News reported that Manning could be visited by only those she had named before her imprisonment, and not by journalists. She could not be photographed or give interviews on camera. Manning was not allowed to browse the web, but could consult print news and have access to new gender theory texts. In April 2015, Amnesty International posted online a letter from Manning in which she described her daily life. "My days here are busy and very routine", she wrote. "I am taking college correspondence courses for a bachelor's degree. I also work out a lot to stay fit, and read newspapers, magazines and books to keep up-to-date on current events around the world and learn new things." Writing In February 2015, Katharine Viner, editor-in-chief of Guardian US, announced that Manning had joined The Guardian as a contributing opinion writer on war, gender, and freedom of information. In 2014, The Guardian had published two op-eds by Manning: "How to make Isis fall on its own sword" (September 16) and, "I am a transgender woman and the government is denying my civil rights" (December 8). Manning's debut article under the new arrangement, "The CIA's torturers and the leaders who approved their actions must face the law", appeared on March 9, 2015. In April 2015, Manning began communicating via Twitter, under the handle @xychelsea, by using a voice phone to dictate to intermediaries, who tweeted on her behalf. Suicide attempts On July 5, 2016, Manning was taken to a hospital after a suicide attempt. On July 28, 2016, the ACLU announced that Manning was under investigation and facing several possible charges related to her suicide attempt. She was not allowed to have legal representation at the disciplinary hearing for these charges. At the hearing, held on September 22, she was sentenced to 14 days in solitary confinement, with seven of those days suspended indefinitely. Manning emerged from solitary confinement on October 12, after serving seven days; she said that she was not given the opportunity to appeal the ruling before being placed in solitary. In an article following her recovery, entitled "Moving On", Manning reflected on her change in identity, wishing people to see her no longer as "Chelsea Manning, formerly Bradley Manning, a US Army Soldier ... convicted", but as a person. She used a selfie from 2008 to accompany the article. In November 2016, Manning disclosed that she made a second suicide attempt on October 4, 2016, on the first night of her solitary confinement. Hunger strike On September 9, 2016, Manning began a hunger strike to protest what she described as her being bullied by prison authorities and the U.S. government. On September 13, the ACLU announced that Manning had ended the five-day hunger strike after the Army agreed to provide gender transition surgery. The operation, however, was not performed before her release from prison in May 2017. ==2017–present ==

'' Next Festival 2018 in Milan In a June 9, 2017, appearance on Good Morning America, her first interview following her release, Manning said she "accepted responsibility" for her actions, and thanked former President Obama for giving her "another chance". She now earns a living through speaking engagements. Harvard said Manning would visit for a limited number of events meant to spark campus discussion, and in particular would engage students in discourse on "issues of LGBTQ identity in the military". According to online newspaper PinkNews, this marked "the only LGBT-related fellowship in Harvard history". The next day Michael Morell, former deputy director and twice acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), resigned as a nonresident senior fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. "Unfortunately," Morell wrote, "I cannot be part of an organization—The Kennedy School—that honors a convicted felon and leaker of classified information ... the Kennedy School's decision will assist Ms. Manning in her long-standing effort to legitimize the criminal path that she took to prominence, an attempt that may encourage others to leak classified information as well." Later that day, CIA director Mike Pompeo advised the university that he supported Morell's decision, and withdrew from his scheduled public appearance that evening at Harvard's Kennedy School. Calling Manning an "American traitor", Pompeo wrote: "While I have served my country as a soldier in the United States Army and will continue to defend Ms. Manning's right to offer a defense of why she chose this path, I believe it is shameful for Harvard to place its stamp of approval upon her treasonous actions." When Elmendorf phoned Manning, a member of her support team challenged him to explain why Harvard was so concerned about the title "visiting fellow". The team was alienated by his response, which they inferred suggested she had nothing to contribute. Manning then hung up on the dean. On September 17, 2017, during a public appearance at The Nantucket Project in Massachusetts, Manning said: "I'm not ashamed of being disinvited. I view that just as much of an honored distinction as the fellowship itself." She added, "This is a military intelligence and it is a police state in which we can no longer engage in actual political discourse in our institutions." Denied entry to Canada On September 22, 2017, Manning was denied entry to Canada from the United States because of her criminal record. According to a letter from Canadian immigration officials, posted online by Manning, she is inadmissible due to being convicted of offenses equivalent to treason in Canada. In October 2021, appearing virtually at an Immigration and Refugee Board hearing to determine her admissibility, Manning called the four-year process to visit Canada "exhausting". When questioned by the adjudicator, Manning did not go into detail about what she leaked because she is bound by a non-disclosure agreement with the U.S. government. The two-day hearing concluded with the adjudicator indicating a final written decision could be expected in 2022. On April 8, 2022, Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board upheld the government's decision to bar Manning's entry. U.S. Senate candidacy On January 11, 2018, Manning filed with the Federal Election Commission to run for the U.S. Senate in Maryland. On February 1, The Washington Post raised questions about Manning's eligibility to run: "While her case is on appeal, she is on a technical form of unpaid active duty, putting her political campaign at odds with Department of Defense regulations that prohibit military personnel from seeking public office." Military law expert Eugene R. Fidell of Yale Law School considered it unlikely the Army would take action against her, saying, "Services don't like to create martyrs." On February 2, Manning commented: "This is an issue that's cropped up mostly from the conservative blogosphere, and the campaign and we don't believe this is an issue at all. ... I've been issued a dishonorable discharge, and I'm not sure where the issue lies in this case." She also confirmed that she was still appealing her court-martial sentence. In mid-February, she said she had no plans to run television ads, explaining, "I can't stand watching campaign ads. We don't need to go to these old-media methods." Commenting on her opponent, 74-year-old incumbent Ben Cardin, she stated, "He's old hat. He's kept this establishment going." On June 26, 2018, Manning finished second among eight Democrats vying for their party's US Senate nomination in Maryland's primary election. Manning received 5.8% of the votes. Incumbent Ben Cardin won renomination with 80.4% of the votes cast. Interactions with far-right social media figures On January 20, 2018, Manning attended "A Night for Freedom" hosted by far-right social media personality Mike Cernovich at the nightclub FREQ in Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan. The party was billed, in Cernovich's words, as a "gathering of patriots and political dissidents who are bored with mainstream political events", and included right-wing figures such as Gavin McInnes, James O'Keefe, Lucian Wintrich, and Jack Posobiec. According to The Washington Post, Manning's attendance infuriated the far-left. "What followed," The Post reported, "was an overheated Internet tug-of-war between opposite sides of the political spectrum, each accusing the other of co-opting Manning, while her intentions were relentlessly picked apart." Tour of Australia and New Zealand In August 2018, the Government of Australia refused to issue Manning a visa to enter the country, where she was scheduled to make a series of public appearances. The company arranging Manning's speaking tour said it would appeal the decision, taken under s501(1) of the Migration Act, which authorizes a minister to refuse a visa on character grounds. The Department of Home Affairs specified that Manning did not pass the character test because of her "substantial criminal record". On September 2, Manning spoke as scheduled at the Sydney Opera House except that she appeared onscreen live via satellite from Los Angeles. On August 31, 2018, Immigration New Zealand granted Manning special direction to apply for a work visa to enter New Zealand, stating there was "no reason to believe Ms Manning would not comply with the terms and conditions of any visa issued". Due to her previous convictions for espionage and other offenses, Manning is subject to character provisions of the Immigration Act. Manning had plans to tour Auckland and Wellington on September 8 and 9. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern defended the New Zealand Government's decision to allow Manning entry, stating that "we are a nation that allows free speech". By contrast, the center-right National Party had called for Manning to be banned from entering New Zealand on national security grounds due to her espionage and computer-fraud convictions. In August 2021, Forbes reported that Manning had been contracted to conduct an information security audit with Nym Technologies, a Swiss cryptocurrency and VPN startup "to send data anonymously around the Internet using the same blockchain technology underlying Bitcoin". The book, README.txt, was published in 2022. It focuses on Manning's early adulthood, Army career, and early gender transition. During an interview about the book, Manning said: Activism In December 2024, Manning was one of 15 protesters arrested at a "sit-in" at a women's bathroom across from the Washington, D.C., office of U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson. The protest was organized by Gender Liberation Movement in response to House Resolution 1579, which would ban bathroom access for transgender people in federal buildings. On April 13, 2026, Manning and nearly 100 other protesters were arrested at a pro-Palestine action targeting arms sales to Israel outside the offices of New York senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand. The protest was organized with the anti-Zionist advocacy group Jewish Voice for Peace. Actors Hari Nef and Hannah Einbinder also participated. DJing Before her arrest in 2010, Manning was known to DJ on occasion. She has returned to DJing as of August 2022. ==See also==