Former CIA Director James Woolsey praised Harvard University for rescinding it’s controversial invite to Chelsea Manning to be a visiting fellow, saying she shouldn’t be “rewarded for betraying the United States.”
“It wasn’t a mistake,” Woolsey told the Independent Journal Review.
Woolsey said Manning didn’t accidentally take her “briefcase home and forget that it had a classified document in it.”
“And I do not think under any circumstances that that behavior should be rewarded,” added Woolsey, who served under former President Bill Clinton.
The Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School faced intense backlash for naming Manning one of about 10 visiting fellows in the fall.
Former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell announced Thursday he was stepping down as a senior fellow at the university in response to the news.
In a letter to dean Douglas Elmendorf, Morell called the move “wholly inappropriate.”
CIA Director Mike Pompeo dropped out of a speaking engagement at the university hours later.
“[A]fter much deliberation in the wake of Harvard’s announcement of American traitor Chelsea Manning as a visiting fellow at the Institute of Politics, my conscience and duty to the men and women at the Central Intelligence Agency will not permit me to betray their trust by appearing to support Harvard’s decision with my appearance at tonight’s event,” Pompeo said in a statement.
Manning accused Harvard of caving to pressure from the CIA, but said she was “honored to be 1st disinvited trans woman” from the Harvard program.
Manning spent seven years in prison for leaking national security information. Former President Barack Obama commuted her 35-year sentence before he left office.
