Former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning freed from jail

FALLS CHURCH, Va. —  A federal judge on Thursday ordered the release of former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, ending roughly a year of incarceration that she had served for refusing to testify to a grand jury.

U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga ordered Manning’s release from jail after prosecutors reported that the grand jury that subpoenaed her has disbanded.

The Alexandria Sheriff’s Office confirmed Thursday night that Manning had been released.

The judge left in place more than $256,000 in fines he imposed for her refusal to testify to the grand jury, which is investigating WikiLeaks. The fines had been accumulating at a rate of $1,000 a day.

A hearing in the case that was scheduled for Friday has been canceled. Manning had argued that she’d shown through her prolonged stay at the Alexandria jail that she could not be coerced into testifying and therefore should be released.

Manning’s legal statement asked for privacy and expressed relief at her release. On Wednesday, her lawyers said she had attempted suicide while at the jail.

Manning was held since May for refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating Wikileaks. She spent an additional two months in jail earlier in 2019 for refusing to testify to a separate grand jury.

She could have faced nearly six more months in jail if the grand jury had continued its work. The civil contempt citation was designed to coerce her testimony.

Federal prosecutors had maintained that Manning could easily effect her own release by complying with the grand jury subpoena. They said she had the same duty to provide testimony that all citizens face.

Under federal law, a recalcitrant witness can only be jailed for civil contempt if there is a reasonable belief that incarceration will coerce the witness into testifying. If the jail time has no coercive effect and is purely punitive, the recalcitrant witness is supposed to be released.

Manning has said she believes grand juries in general are an abuse of power and that she would rather starve to death than testify. Judge Trenga, in originally sending Manning to jail, said that there was no dishonor in testifying to grand juries, which are referenced specifically in the U.S. Constitution, and that he hoped time in jail would allow Manning to reflect on that.

Manning had previously spent seven years in a military prison for delivering a trove of classified information to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is under indictment at the Alexandria courthouse and is fighting extradition to the U.S.. Manning’s 35-year sentence was commuted by then-President Obama.

It is possible that prosecutors could convene another grand jury and again subpoena Manning, and she could again be jailed for refusing to testify. But there is no clear indication from prosecutors that they would do so.

Prosecutors declined comment late Thursday on Manning’s release.