Manning had been jailed for two months starting on March 8 after she refused to answer questions before a grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, about WikiLeaks and the group’s founder Julian Assange — specifically, about the cache of classified military documents that she gave to WikiLeaks in 2010. She was released on May 9 because the term of the grand jury expired.
US District Judge Anthony Trenga ordered Manning jailed on Thursday following a two-hour hearing, half of which was sealed. During the second, public portion of the hearing, Trenga announced that he had once again found Manning in civil contempt, and decided that notwithstanding her pledge not to cooperate, he thought there was still a chance that more jail time could convince her otherwise. The government had argued that because Manning had an appeal pending during part of the previous two months she served, she spent part of her earlier jail time with some hope of release. …..
Manning, wearing a black jacket, shirt, pants, and boots, told the judge she would rather “starve to death” than change her opinion, and added that she meant that “literally.”
“The government cannot build a prison bad enough, cannot create a system worse than the idea that I would ever change my principles,” she said.
The judge has the power to keep Manning in jail until she testifies or until the term of the grand jury expires again. Trenga also imposed a fine — after 30 days in jail, a daily fine of $500 will kick in, and that amount will go up to $1,000 per day after 60 days. …….
After the previous grand jury expired earlier this month and Manning was released, prosecutors convened a new grand jury in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and issued a new subpoena to Manning, requiring her to come back and testify. Speaking to reporters before she went into the courthouse, Manning again vowed not to answer any questions.
“I will not cooperate with this or any other grand jury,” Manning said.
Grand jury proceedings are normally secret, but Manning and her support team confirmed that prosecutors want to ask her about WikiLeaks. A military court found Manning guilty of violating the Espionage Act in 2013, among other crimes, for leaking hundreds of thousands of military documents to WikiLeaks. She was sentenced to 35 years in prison. But in January 2017, in the final days of the Obama administration, former president Barack Obama commuted Manning’s sentence, and she was released in May of that year.
Assange is facing an indictment in the Alexandria court charging him with conspiring with Manning to hack into US Defense Department computer systems in 2010. Assange is in London — he was arrested on April 11 after spending years in the Ecuadorian Embassy as an asylum-seeker — and is contesting efforts by the US government to extradite him to the United States. It could be years before the extradition fight is resolved, however.
The Justice Department has 60 days after seeking a “provisional arrest” of Assange through UK authorities in mid-April to submit a final extradition package. Once that happens, prosecutors can’t add any more charges against him. It’s unclear if prosecutors want Manning to testify before the grand jury specifically about matters that could lead to more charges against Assange, or as part of a broader investigation with other subjects.
Manning has repeatedly challenged the lawfulness of the government’s effort to force her to testify, and said she believes she may have been under surveillance. The US Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit summarily rejected her challenges to the subpoena and her incarceration the first time she was jailed. …….https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetillman/chelsea-manning-back-jail-wikileaks-assange
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