Chelsea Manning indicated no regrets for leaking thousands of pages of classified national security documents, and said in an interview with Vogue that using official whistleblower channels doesn’t work anymore for government officials.
Vogue published a lengthy interview Thursday with Manning, the transgender Army intelligence analyst formerly known as Bradley Manning.
In the interview, which was accompanied by Annie Leibovitz photographs, reporter Nathan Heller asked if Manning had any regrets for leaking the information, which earned Manning a 35-year prison sentence.
“Twice during our conversations, and in slightly different ways, I ask Manning what she regrets from the period when she was living as Specialist Bradley Manning,” Heller wrote.
“Her leaking of state secrets doesn’t appear on the list, although that decision remains the most publicly controversial of her life, earning her accusations of treason and reckless endangerment,” Heller added.
“I think it’s important to remember that when somebody sees government wrongdoing — whether it’s illegal or immoral or unethical — there isn’t the means available to do something about it,” Manning told Heller. “Everyone keeps saying, You should have gone through the proper channels! But the proper channels don’t work.”
Heller wrote that Manning’s “struggle to find an outlet” to give the leaked documents is “proof of a systemic problem.”
“We need to have more ways to talk about what’s going on in government,” Manning said.
But Heller noted that many didn’t see it Manning’s way. House Speaker Paul Ryan said Manning’s “treachery put American lives at risk.”
When former President Barack Obama commuted Manning’s sentence after just four years in prison, then-President-elect Trump called Manning an “ungrateful traitor” who “should never have been released from prison.”
The story is titled, “Chelsea Manning Changed the Course of History. Now She’s Focusing on Herself,” and tracks Manning’s night out in New York as Manning prepares for and attends a party.
