Want the best from VICE News in your inbox? Sign up here.
Chelsea Manning was jailed Friday after she refused to testify before a grand jury about WikiLeaks.
Videos by VICE
Manning told a federal judge that she would accept whatever punishment he handed down but would not testify due to the secretive nature of the process. Manning, the U.S. whistleblower and activist convicted of releasing a cache of military documents to WikiLeaks in 2010, will remain in jail until she testifies or the grand jury’s work concludes, the judge said, according to the Associated Press.
Initially, Manning didn’t know why she was subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury in February. But the district that subpoenaed her is the same one that secretly filed charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Now, Manning has objected to answering questions on the grounds that she already answered all of them back in 2013 in a court martial.
“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,” Manning told NBC in a statement.
“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,” she continued.
Manning was originally sentenced to 35 years in prison on numerous espionage charges after she released a trove of military documents to WikiLeaks, including a video that showed a 2007 U.S. airstrike in Baghdad that killed two dozen people. The footage raised questions about potential war crimes by the U.S.
Manning’s sentence, however, was commuted as one of President Barack Obama’s final acts as president. She served just seven years and was released in 2017.
Cover image: Chelsea Manning prepares to enter the Albert V. Bryan U.S. District Courthouse on Tuesday, March 5, 2019, in Alexandria, VA. (Photo by Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
