Chelsea Manning is brushing off criticism from CIA officials after the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School rescinded its fellowship offer to her as it faced backlash from the intelligence community.
“I’m not going to be afraid and I’m not going to be intimidated,” Manning told the Daily Beast.
Harvard faced a deluge of criticism over its decision to name Manning a visiting fellow after she was convicted in 2013 of violating the Espionage act for leaking thousands of national security documents to WikiLeaks.
CIA Director Mike Pompeo declined an invite to speak at Harvard because it would “betray” the trust of CIA employees.
Former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell resigned as a senior fellow, saying he could no longer be part of an organization “that honors a convicted felon and leaker of classified information.”
Former CIA Director James Woolsey said Manning shouldn’t be “rewarded for betraying the United States.”
“What’s important here is that the Central Intelligence Agency and associated people in the intelligence community, they think they can stifle dissent, all forms of dissent, all across America and use academic institutions as a battleground,” Manning said.
