Chelsea Manning may end up back in jail after the transgender activist refused to comply with a federal grand jury subpoena.
Law & Crime reports that it’s unclear what issue the federal grand jury has been convened over, but it appears that prosecutors wanted Manning to testify regarding Julian Assange and Wikileaks. A U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia appeared to confirm that the government is pursuing an as-yet-unknown set of potential criminal charges against the Wikileaks founder, who is still holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
“The government slapped Manning with a subpoena to appear before a grand jury in the EDVA, Manning moved to quash the subpoena. A federal judge denied that attempted quashing on Tuesday,” Law & Crime reported earlier this week.
Manning, of course, has a clear connection to Assange, having offered Wikileaks a trove of classified documents, transcripts, and videos stolen from military intelligence agencies in the Middle East during the Iraq War. Manning downloaded the classified material, ostensibly in protest of the military’s ban on LGBT individuals serving openly, and passed the material to Assange, who posted it on Wikileaks.
Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison for espionage, but Manning’s sentence was commuted by then-President Barack Obama.
Manning appears to have no intention of appearing or testifying in front of the federal grand jury, whether he is able to successfully quash the subpoena or not. On Thursday, Manning told CNN that prosecutors did not specify why the were seeking testimony.
“They told us that they’re just interested in me appearing so what questions they ask me I don’t know,” Manning said. “We certainly don’t know — we can speculate like anyone else.”
CNN reports that the Justice Department has been investigating Assange since at least 2010, and that there was a recent development in the case, leading to a flurry of filings and activities in the Eastern District of Virginia over the last two weeks.
Manning’s closed hearing, the former Army intelligence worker told reporters, is scheduled for tomorrow morning, but Manning has no plans to show up.
New statement from Chelsea Manning — she has refused to testify before grand jury. Another closed hearing is set for tomorrow am. “The court may find me in contempt, and order me to jail,” she says in statement.
— Rachel Weiner (@rachelweinerwp) March 7, 2019
The court has scheduled a contempt hearing for Friday, it seems, according to a statement from Manning released Thursday afternoon, though it appears Manning testified in some capacity on Thursday as well.
Yesterday, I appeared before a secret grand jury after being given immunity for my testimony. All of the substantive questions pertained to my disclosures of information to the public in 2010—answers I provided in extensive testimony, during my court-martial in 2013. I responded to each question with the following statement: “I object to the question and refuse to answer on the grounds that the question is in violation of my First, Fourth, and Sixth Amendment, and other statutory rights.”
Contempt of court charges do not typically result in long sentences.