Bradley Manning found guilty of multiple counts of espionage, computer fraud, theft

[Little-Acorn]

Manning has been found guilty of espionage, computer fraud, theft, etc.

He was found Not Guilty of "aiding the enemy". Not because he didn't aid them, but because he didn't INTEND to aid them.

If I push him out of a 10th floor window, will he be less dead because I didn't INTEND to push him? At least, not very much?

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Manning not guilty of aiding the enemy in WikiLeaks case, still may face 128 years in prison | Fox News

Bradley Manning not guilty of aiding the enemy in WikiLeaks case, convicted of lesser charges

Published July 30, 2013
FoxNews.com

DEVELOPING: The U.S. Army soldier charged with providing troves of government documents to the whistleblowing website Wikileaks was found not guilty Tuesday of aiding the enemy, the top charge in his 21-count indictment, which could have carried a life sentence.

Prosecutors had to prove Army Pfc. Bradley Manning had "a general evil intent" and knew the classified material would be seen by the terrorist group Al Qaeda. Legal experts said an aiding-the- enemy conviction could set a precedent because Manning did not directly give the classified material to Al Qaeda.

Manning was convicted of five espionage counts, five theft charges, a computer fraud charge and other military infractions. His sentencing is scheduled for Wednesday at 9:30 a.m.

The 25-year-old Crescent, Okla., native acknowledged giving the anti-secrecy website hundreds of thousands of battlefield reports, diplomatic cables and videos in early 2010.

Manning said he didn't believe the information would harm troops in Afghanistan and Iraq or threaten national security.

 

[Claudette]

Glad that little prick will be in jail for 150 years. Well at least 70 anyway.

When he croaks they need to bury him under Leavenworth.

 

[RoadVirus]

No big loss. This stupid little Homo twit should've known better.

 

[waltky]

He was crackin' up long before Wikileaks...

Manning's emotional state should have blocked top secret clearance, lawyers say
August 13, 2013 -- He was late for meetings, and once curled in a fetal position on a storage room floor and clutched his head, a knife at his feet. He carved the words "I want" into a chair.

Another time, he pounded his fists and flipped over a table of computers before he was wrestled into submission. And in April 2010, Army Pfc. Bradley Manning emailed his sergeant a mug shot of himself wearing makeup, dark lipstick and a flowing blonde wig. "This is my problem," he wrote in the email. "I have had signs of it for a very long time." Signs of Manning's emotional distress seemed everywhere. Yet according to testimony Tuesday in the sentencing phase of his court martial, Army officers at Fort Drum, N.Y., and in Iraq didn't cancel Manning's top secret security clearance or seek to transfer him out of Iraq or discharge him from the Army. Had they done so, Manning's lawyers contend, he would have lost access to the 700,000 classified war logs, diplomatic cables, enemy combatant assessments and other materials he secretly sent to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks to stop what he considered a coverup of military atrocities and other abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Defense lawyers are seeking to persuade a military judge not to impose the maximum 90-year sentence on Manning, who was convicted last month of espionage and other charges related to the illegal disclosures. They are trying to show that Army commanders ignored signs that the Oklahoma-born soldier was mentally unstable and was nearing a breakdown. Several defense witnesses testified that they thought Manning could handle sensitive material in Iraq as long as he received counseling. His master sergeant, Paul Adkins, who later was reprimanded and reduced in rank over his handling of Manning, said, "I felt that his therapy would eventually bear fruit. I certainly hoped that to be the case." Manning's email and photo landed in Adkins' inbox on April 24, 2010. The subject line said, "My Problem," and Manning addressed his struggle with being gay. "I thought a career in the military would get rid of it," he wrote. "It's not something I seek out for attention, and I've been trying very, very hard to get rid of it by placing myself in situations where it would be impossible. But it's not going away. It's haunting me more and more as I get older. Now, the consequences of it are dire, at a time when it's causing me great pain."

Adkins waited a month to alert his superiors. "I really didn't think having a picture of one of my soldiers floating around in drag was in the best interest of the intel mission," he said. Adkins said he later was told that Manning would have been cut from the intelligence unit if he had shared the photo and email sooner. He also recalled when Manning once missed formation at Fort Drum and was found "tensed up and clinched his fists and started screaming." Still, Adkins deemed Manning fit for duty. He recommended more therapy and meetings with a chaplain and encouraged Manning to keep a journal to write down his frustrations. "We needed analysts to assess the Shia threat," he said. "And I wanted to make sure that we had enough soldiers to conduct our mission." He said another soldier in the unit had suffered a heart attack and couldn't be deployed to Iraq. "I didn't assess that we could get away with having two soldiers [stay] behind, especially one with a non-physical health issue."

Chief Warrant Officer Joshua Ehresman said Manning erupted violently against one of his superiors, pounding his fists, flipping a table with government computers and trying to grab a firearm before he was restrained during a counseling session in an Army intelligence compound southeast of Baghdad in December 2009. "He got angry and slammed his fists on the table," Ehresman said. "He grabbed onto the table and put his arm under it and flipped it onto the floor." A desk computer and a laptop came crashing down. "I felt that he was going toward a weapons rack, and I felt I needed to detain him," he added. "I grabbed him and put him in a full Nelson and put him on a bench. Then me and him talked. I told him to relax, relax, that we could talk like adults. He said he was calm and to let him go. And he calmed down."

Chief Warrant Officer Kyle Balonek, who followed Ehresman onto the stand, said he and other supervisors decided Manning required counseling but did not need to be transferred with an official derogatory report. A so-called "derog" report could have cost Manning his security clearance and prevented him from having access to classified material. "In my eyes, it was being addressed. He was receiving some help," Balonek said. "But that particular incident didn't seem particularly derog-worthy. He got upset. And he turned the table. To me, it equated to a temper tantrum. But it is a little dangerous to go for a weapon, if that indeed is what happened."

Source

See also:

US WikiLeaks Defense Says Army Ignored Manning's Bizarre Acts
August 13, 2013 — Lawyers for Bradley Manning, the U.S. soldier convicted of giving classified documents to WikiLeaks, sought to show during a sentencing hearing on Tuesday that the Army ignored his mental health problems and bizarre behavior.

Manning's violent outbursts and his emailing a supervisor a photo of himself in a dress and blond wig with the caption “This is my problem” were signs the gay soldier should not have a job as an intelligence analyst, defense attorney David Coombs told the court-martial. Manning, a 25-year-old private first class, faces up to 90 years in prison after being convicted July 30 on 20 charges, including espionage and theft, in the biggest release of classified files in U.S. history. Attorneys for Manning are expected to read a statement from him on Wednesday as they conclude their case in the last part of the trial. Sentencing by Judge Colonel Denise Lind could follow shortly after. Manning's court-martial has drawn international scrutiny, and the trove of documents he provided catapulted WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, into the spotlight.

Coombs asked Manning's supervisor, former Master Sergeant Paul Adkins, why he did not remove Manning from his job as an intelligence analyst in Iraq in 2009 and 2010 when he showed erratic and sometimes violent behavior. Coombs mentioned incidents in which Manning punched a soldier in the face, carved the words “I want” into a chair with a knife and flipped over a table while being reprimanded about being late to his job. Adkins said his unit was short-staffed and needed Manning's analysis work. “The biggest threat to our soldiers and our operational environment emerged from the Shia [Muslim] insurgent group, which PFC Manning helped to assess,” said Adkins, who was demoted after the WikiLeaks release.

Wrong assessment

He said he believed Manning was being helped by mental therapy. “I wrongly assessed that he was stable enough to continue his shift,” said Adkins. Coombs has asserted that the Army's failure to act on Manning's mental health problems contributed to his release of more than 700,000 secret diplomatic and military documents and videos. Under questioning from prosecutor Captain Angel Overgaard, Adkins said Manning was among several soldiers in his unit who underwent psychological counseling for stress in Iraq.

Chief Warrant Officer Joshua Ehresman said that in a December 2009 incident Manning turned over a table with two computers on it while being reprimanded for tardiness. “I felt as though he was going toward the weapons rack,” Ehresman said. “I grabbed him and put him in a full nelson and put him on the bench.” Defense lawyers have sought to portray Manning as naive but well-intentioned and struggling with his sexual identity when he arrived in Iraq. His lawyers have said Manning wanted to show Americans the human cost of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The prosecution has portrayed Manning as arrogant in releasing the classified material and has tried to show damage that the leaks to WikiLeaks, a pro-transparency website, had done to the United States. Judge Lind overruled three of five defense objections to classified information presented during court sessions that were closed to the public and media. The judge did not reveal the information, but said it was proper “aggravation evidence” of the damage the releases did to U.S. foreign relations. She upheld the other two objections, saying the information presented by military officials was speculative.

Source

 

[Sallow]

Good.

Snowden's next.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Why not execute him with a firing squad?

 

[JoeB131]

A couple of thoughts

First, hat tip to Walkty for pointing out the real problem here is that the Army should have know this was a person who was totally unfit for military service. Instead they kept him, deployed him to Iraq, and gave him access to thousands of secure documents. The same argument could be made about Nidal Hasan. What was he doing still in uniform?

Second, how much of what he exposed really helped the enemy vs. how much of what he exposed just made the army look bad. Were these really secrets the Army was keeping from the enemy, or were they secrets that the Army was keeping from the folks back home?

 

[Billo_Really]

Bradley Manning did exactly what he was supposed to do............report a war crime.

The only thing that made us look bad, was the shooting of innocent Iraqi civilians.

 

[Crackerman]

Bradley Manning did exactly what he was supposed to do............report a war crime.

The only thing that made us look bad, was the shooting of innocent Iraqi civilians.

So you have no problem charging Oblamer with the War Crime of killing innocents with a hell fire from a drone?

Funny how its terrorists when its Obumer doing it but women and children when Bush did.