WikiLeaks source Chelsea Manning is suspected by federal prosecutors of giving bogus testimony during her 2013 military trial, an attorney for the convicted former Army analyst claimed in a court filing made public Wednesday.
Prior to Manning being found in contempt and jailed this month for defying a subpoena issued as part of government’s longstanding investigation into WikiLeaks, her legal team disclosed in a newly unsealed motion to quash that prosecutors seemed skeptical of her previous claims about her relationship with the anti-secrecy website she admittedly supplied with a trove of classified military and diplomatic documents.
“The prosecution has revealed very little about the nature of the grand jury or the questions Ms. Manning may be asked,” lawyer Sandra Freeman wrote in the newly unsealed 30-page motion dated March 1. “And despite repeated requests by Ms. Manning’s legal team for information about the nature of the expected grand jury questions, the prosecutor has only generally revealed that he believes some of Ms. Manning’s statements at the court-martial were either false or mistaken, and that the grand jury would benefit from hearing more details about Ms. Manning’s contacts and communications with respect to the 2010 disclosures.”
“Given the prosecutor’s unwillingness to disclose information to Ms. Manning that would help her evaluate the risks of testifying, she must assume that the grand jury is a ’perjury trap’ or even worse, a subterfuge for another military prosecution,” the lawyer wrote.
G. Zachary Terwilliger, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, responded by calling Manning’s arguments about a perjury trap “pure conjecture.”
“Quite simply, Manning broke the law in disclosing classified information, and therefore, the grand jury properly could inquire about that offense, just as it properly could inquire about any other potential offense that Manning committed or witnessed,” he wrote in the government’s response.
“Manning was subpoenaed because her testimony is highly relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation,” he added. “Like any other citizen, Manning must appear before the grand jury as scheduled, and she must testify fully and truthfully as this Court has ordered her to do.”
The motion to quash was rejected and Manning was jailed for contempt on March 8. She has been ordered held until she agrees to answer the government’s questions or the grand jury expires.
Both filings were among several documents unsealed Wednesday under an order issued by U.S. District Judge Claude M. Hilton in Alexandria, Virginia.
Manning, 31, was initially arrested in 2010 while deployed overseas and charged with giving WikiLeaks hundreds of thousands of documents belonging to the Pentagon and State Department. She pleaded guilty to several related counts and ultimately sentenced to 35 years in prison, but she was released early as a result of having the bulk of her punishment commuted by former President Barack Obama.
Testifying before an Army judge in 2013, Manning discussed at length her involvement with the WikiLeaks Organization, or “WLO,” including conversations she had with an individual she presumed to likely be the website’s publisher, Julian Assange.
“The decisions that I made to send documents and information to the WLO and the website were my own decisions, and I take full responsibility for my actions,” she said at the time.
WikiLeaks has been the subject of a Department of Justice probe since at least 2010, though prosecutors have refused to confirm or deny whether Mr. Assange, a 47-year-old Australian granted political asylum by Ecuador, faces related charges.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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