Chelsea Manning is the subject of “torture” at the hands of the federal government and should be released from federal custody, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Democrat, said Tuesday.
The WikiLeaks source granted a commuted sentence by President Obama “has been trapped in solitary confinement for refusing to answer questions before a Grand Jury,” the freshwoman congresswoman said on Twitter.
“Solitary confinement is torture,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez wrote to her 3.8 million Twitter followers. “Chelsea is being tortured for whistleblowing, she should be released on bail, and we should ban extended solitary in the US.”
Manning, 31, was convicted in 2013 of crimes related to supplying the WikiLeaks website with hundreds of thousands of sensitive documents obtained during her deployment in the Iraq War as an Army intelligence analyst, and she served roughly seven years behind bars prior to being released early in 2017.
She was recently subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury empaneled in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, but she refused to cooperate with prosecutors and was found in contempt and ordered jailed March 8.
Manning’s supporters claimed she has been held in “effective” solitary for 22 hours a day while jailed at the William G. Truesdale Adult Detention Center in Alexandria. Sheriff Dana Lawhorne of the Alexandria Sheriff’s Department previously dismissed that claim as inaccurate and said that Manning is housed in “administrative segregation for safety and security reasons.”
“As previously stated, our facility does not have ’solitary confinement’ and inmates housed in administrative segregation for safety and security reasons still have access to social visits, books, recreation and break time outside their cells,” the sheriff told The Washington Times on Tuesday in response to Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s comments. “We continue to be in contact with Ms. Manning’s counsel to address any concerns they have.”
Manning’s lawyers said they suspect prosecutors hoped to ask their client questions about her unauthorized leaks roughly nine years after the fact. Related court proceedings are under seal, but public filings indicate she was subpoenaed as part of the same, long-standing Department of Justice investigation into WikiLeaks triggered by her unauthorized disclosures in 2010.
Attorneys for Manning are challenging the contempt ruling in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, and on Monday they requested that she be released from custody pending that court’s decision.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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