United States v. Manning was the court-martial of Chelsea Manning, a former United States Army Private First Class.Jennifer Rizzo, , CNN, February 23, 2012.Patrick Semansky, "Bradley Manning wants to live as a woman: 'I am Chelsea Manning, Toronto Star, August 22, 2013.
After serving in Iraq since October 2009, Manning was arrested in May 2010 after Adrian Lamo, a computer hacker in the United States, indirectly informed the Army's Criminal Investigation Command that Manning had acknowledged passing classified material to WikiLeaks. Manning was ultimately charged with 22 specified offenses, including communicating national defense information to an unauthorized source, and the most serious of the charges, aiding the enemy. Other charges included violations of the Espionage Act of 1917, stealing U.S. government property, charges under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 and charges related to the failure to obey lawful general orders under Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Manning entered guilty pleas to 10 of 22 specified offenses in February 2013., CBS News, February 28, 2013.
The trial on the 12 remaining charges began on June 3, 2013.Julie Tate and Ellen Nakashima, "Bradley Manning court-martial opens", The Washington Post, June 3, 2013. It went to the judge on July 26, 2013, and findings were rendered on July 30. Manning was acquitted of the most serious charge, that of aiding the enemy, for giving secrets to WikiLeaks. In addition to five or six espionage counts, Manning was also found guilty of five theft specifications, two computer fraud specifications and multiple military infractions.
On August 21, 2013, Manning was sentenced to 35 years' imprisonment, reduction in pay grade to E-1, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and a dishonorable discharge. On January 17, 2017, President Barack Obama commuted Manning's sentence to a total of seven years' confinement. Manning was released on May 17, 2017. On May 31, 2018, the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals upheld Manning's conviction of violating the Espionage Act of 1917.
Background
The material includes 251,287 United States diplomatic cables, over 400,000 classified army reports from the Iraq War (the Iraq War logs), and approximately 90,000 army reports from the war in Afghanistan (the Afghan War logs). WikiLeaks also received two videos. One was of the July 12, 2007, Baghdad airstrike (dubbed the "Collateral Murder" video); the second, which was never published, was of the May 2009 Granai airstrike in Afghanistan.Kim Zetter, "Bradley Manning to Face All Charges in Court-Martial", Wired, February 3, 2012.
Manning was charged on July 5, 2010, with violations of Articles 92 and 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which were alleged to have taken place between November 19, 2009, and May 27, 2010."Attorney for WikiLeaks suspect says he's seen no evidence on documents" , CNN, August 31, 2010. "Charge sheet". "Charge sheet", The Washington Post, accessed April 7, 2012. These were replaced on March 1, 2011, with 22 specifications, including aiding the enemy, wrongfully causing intelligence to be published on the Internet knowing that it was accessible to the enemy, theft of public property or records, and transmitting defense information. Manning was found not guilty of aiding the enemy, the most serious charge, for which Manning could have faced the death penalty or life imprisonment."WikiLeaks: Bradley Manning faces 22 new charges", CBS News, March 2, 2011. For figures from ABC, see Luis Martinez, "22 New Charges Against Pvt. Bradley Manning, Accused WikiLeaks Source", ABC News, March 2, 2011. Jim Miklaszewski and Courtney Kube, "Manning faces new charges, possible death penalty", NBC News, March 2, 2011.
Pre-trial hearings
Article 32 hearing
A panel of experts ruled in April 2011 that Manning was fit to stand trial."Panel Says WikiLeaks Suspect Is Competent to Stand Trial", Associated Press, April 29, 2011. An Article 32 hearing, presided over by Lieutenant Colonel Paul Almanza, was convened on December 16, 2011, at Fort Meade, Maryland, to determine whether to proceed to a court martial. The army was represented by Captains Ashden Fein, Joe Morrow, and Angel Overgaard. Manning was represented by military attorneys Major Matthew Kemkes and Captain Paul Bouchard, and by civilian attorney David Coombs.
The hearing resulted in Almanza recommending that Manning be referred to a general court-martial, and on February 3, 2012, the convening authority, Major General Michael Linnington, commander of the Military District of Washington,Linnington was later promoted to Lt. Gen. and became the DoD Deputy Director for Readiness . His replacement at MDW is Maj. Gen. Jeffrey S. Buchanan . ordered Manning to stand trial on all 22 specified charges, including aiding the enemy. Manning was arraigned on February 23, and declined to enter a plea.Regarding fitness to stand trial, see "Panel Says WikiLeaks Suspect Is Competent to Stand Trial", Associated Press, April 29, 2011. For the lawyers' names, see "PFC Manning, Article 32 Script", courtesy of politico.com, accessed May 9, 2012. For WikiLeaks summaries of the hearings, see: "2011-12-16 Handwritten Transcript of Bradley #Manning's Pretrial Hearing Day 1 #WikiLeaks", WikiLeaks, December 16, 2011. "2011-12-17 Handwritten transcript of Bradley #Manning Pretrial Day 2 #WikiLeaks", WikiLeaks, December 17, 2011. "2011-12-18 Handwritten transcript of Bradley #Manning Pretrial Day 3 #WikiLeaks", WikiLeaks, December 18, 2011. "2011-12-19 Summary of PFC Bradley Manning's Pre-Trial Hearing, Dec 16–18", WikiLeaks, December 19, 2011. "2011-12-20 Summary: PFC Bradley Manning Pre-Trial Hearing Day 4", WikiLeaks, December 20, 2011. "2011-12-21 Summary: PFC Bradley Manning Pre-Trial Hearing Day 5", WikiLeaks, December 21, 2011. "2011-12-22 Summary: PFC Bradley Manning Pre-Trial Hearing Day 6", WikiLeaks, December 22, 2011. For the order that she stand trial, see Kim Zetter, "Bradley Manning to Face All Charges in Court-Martial", Wired, February 3, 2012. For the formal charging (arraignment), see Jennifer Rizzo, "Bradley Manning charged", CNN, February 23, 2012.
Prosecution evidence The lead prosecutor, Captain Fein, argued that Manning had given enemies "unfettered access" to the material and had displayed an "absolute indifference" to classified information. He showed the court a video of Adam Gadahn, an al-Qaeda spokesman, referencing the leaked material.Denver Nicks, Private: Bradley Manning, WikiLeaks, and the Biggest Exposure of Official Secrets in American History, Chicago Review Press, 2012, p. 3.
The prosecution presented 300,000 pages of documents in evidence, including chat logs and classified material. Nicks writes that Manning appeared to have taken few security precautions. After Manning's arrest, detectives searched a basement room in Potomac, Maryland, and found an SD card they say contained the Afghan and Iraq War logs, along with a message to WikiLeaks. Investigators said Manning had also left computer trails of Google and Intelink searches, and of using Wget to download documents.Nicks 2012, p. 223.
Lieutenant Colonel Almanza 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 computer Manning had used between November 2009 and May 2010; 400,000 U.S. military reports from Iraq and 91,000 from Afghanistan on the SD card; and 10,000 cables on a personal MacBook Pro and storage devices that they said had not been passed to WikiLeaks because a file was corrupted. They also said they had recovered an exchange from May 2010 between Manning and Eric Schmiedl, a Boston mathematician, in which Manning had admitted to being the source of the Baghdad helicopter attack ("Collateral Murder") video.
Johnson said he found a text file called wl-press.txt on an external hard drive in Manning's room in Iraq. The file was created on November 30, 2009, and gave the contact detail in Iceland for WikiLeaks. He said he also recovered 14–15 pages of encrypted chats, in unallocated space on Manning's MacBook's hard drive, between Manning and someone believed to be Julian Assange, using the Adium instant messaging client. The MacBook's log-in password was found to be the encryption key. Two of the chat handles, which used the Berlin Chaos Computer Club's domain (ccc.de), had names associated with them, Julian Assange and Nathaniel Frank. Johnson also said he found SSH logs on the MacBook that showed an SFTP connection, from an IP address that resolved to Manning's aunt's home, to a Swedish IP address with links to WikiLeaks. There was also a text file named "Readme" attached to the logs, apparently written by Manning:
Johnson said there had been two attempts to delete material from the MacBook. The operating system was re-installed in January 2010, and on or around January 31 an attempt was made to erase the hard drive by doing a "zero-fill," which involves overwriting material with zeroes. This process was started, cancelled, then started again with a single pass. The material was recovered after the overwrite attempts from unallocated space.The army investigators' testimony Zetter, December 19, 2011
Defense arguments
The defense named 48 people it wanted to appear on Manning's behalf. The list was believed to include President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Clinton had said that the diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks "did not represent significant consequences to foreign policy." Obama was named because of an April 2011 statement that Manning "broke the law":
Obama's statement was later echoed by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, who said "We're a nation of laws. He did violate the law."
Manning's lawyers argued that the government had overstated the harm the release of the documents had caused, and had overcharged Manning in order to obtain evidence against Assange. They suggested that other people had had access to Manning's workplace computer, and under cross-examination Shaver acknowledged that some of the 10,000 cables on Manning's personal computer did not match cables published by WikiLeaks. Coombs asked for the dismissal of any charge related to the use of unauthorized software, arguing that Manning's unit had been "lawless ... when it comes to information assurance."
The defense also raised the issue of whether Manning's gender identity disorder had affected Manning's judgment. Manning had e-mailed master sergeant, Paul Adkins, in April 2010 to say she was suffering from gender confusion and, despite then living as a man, attaching a photograph of herself dressed as a woman. After Manning's arrest, the army found information about hormone replacement therapy in her room, and Manning's commander, Captain Steven Lim, learned that she had been calling herself Breanna. Defense lawyers argued that the superiors had failed to provide adequate counseling, and had not taken disciplinary action or revoked Manning's security clearance. They also suggested that the "don't ask, don't tell" policy—which was repealed in September 2011—had made it difficult for Manning to serve in the army as a gay man.For the prosecution argument about Manning's "absolute indifference," and for the defense argument about Manning's unit being "lawless," see Serena Marshall, "Court Martial for Bradley Manning in Wikileaks Case?", ABC News, December 22, 2011. For the government overcharging Manning, see Kim Zetter, "Army Piles on Evidence in Final Arguments in WikiLeaks Hearing", Wired, December 22, 2011.