Transcripts For KGO Nightline 20170616 : vimarsana.com

This is a special edition of nightline. Declassified the Chelsea Manning story. Good evening. Thanks for joining us. Shes among the most tumultuous public figures of our time. Convicted of passing classified information to wikileaks, Chelsea Mannings story strikes at a fundamental dilemma of our cyber age. The delicate balance between protecting government secrets versus the publics right to know. Her groundbreaking fight for transgender rights and controversial clemency have thrust her into the center of so many ideological skirmishes. She sat down with me exclusively for her firstever television interview. Blending into the crowded streets of new york city, petite and unassuming, youd never know this young woman is one of the most divisive figures of our time. Private manning is a traitor and should not have been turned into a martyr. Private manning is a hero. Reporter Chelsea Manning, the transgender soldier convicted of leaking the biggest trove of government secrets in u. S. History. Setting off a firestorm of controversy. Leaked hundreds of thousands of sensitive documents whistleblower protections reporter about government secrets it poses a very real and potential threat. Reporter National Security and the peoples right to know. At 29 shes spent nearly onequarter of her life in prison. And up until this point has only told her story through words on paper. So many people call you a traitor. Many call you a hero. Who is Chelsea Manning . Im just me. Its as simple as that. Reporter yet the road to get here has been rough. Growing up in the oklahoma bible belt, she was known then as bradley manning. She says she found it increasingly difficult to fit in. I really struggled with gender, i was struggling as a teenager. Im looking for my place in the world. What made you feel the call to enlist in the military . Id see on the television, on the evening news, the surge in iraq. Iraq descending into chaos. I felt like maybe i can do something, maybe i can make a difference. Reporter mannings computer skills earned her a spot as an Army Intelligence analyst, deployed to iraq where she was tasked with sifting through classified reports. But she says it opened her eyes to a starkly different version of the war. Images like these. American soldiers opening fire from an apache helicopter. Oh, yeah, look at that, right through the wind shield, ha ha. Reporter on what would turn out to be civilians, including children. Its their fault for bringing their kids to a battle. Thats right. Reporter among the 12 dead, two journalists from reuters. Everything you need to know about warfare is right there in one 47minute video. What do you mean . Counterinsurgency warfare is not a simple thing. Its not as simple as good guys versus bad guys. It is a mess. Reporter manning says she read news articles about how raters had tried in vain to request this video for two years. She decided to bring it up the chain of command. What did he or she say back . Its just another incident. The only reason it sticks out and is prominent is because it was two journalists. There are thousands and thousands of videos like that. Reporter as manning is dealing with hard drives full of government secrets, shes grappling with a secret of her own. In a moment of desperation she emails this photo of herself to a superior saying, this is my problem. Its the cause of my pain and confusion. It was draping after a while. I felt like im not being myself. Reporter she sought solace online in wikileaksthemed chat rooms. Memes of being able to safely and securely reveal government wrongdoing. You decide to risk your career, to break the law. What was it that you were seeing that compelled you to do that . I stopped seeing just statistics and information. And i started seeing people. Currently engaging approximately eight individuals reporter so manning decided to leak and release that air strike video. And later other classified documents. To wikileaks. The material is dramatic. It was classified. Reporter thus began a game of cat and mouse with a contact named nathaniel who manning said she believed was Julian Assange himself. At the time wikileaks was just an obscure open government website. Why wikileaks, then . I think its important to remember the context. I tried to go to the Washington Post first. I tried to go to the new york times. Reporter over the course of four months, she leaked diplomatic cables, battlefield reports, and guantanamo detainee profiles. More than 700,000 documents in all. The impact, explosive. Its the biggest leak in u. S. Military history. There are names. There are operations. It is an attack on the international community. Reporter less than two months after the disclosures first made news, manning would be taken into custody from her barracks in iraq. Did you think you would ever get caught . Were you ready to pay the price . Im not focused on consequences or what this means or what that means. Im focused on the day to day. Reporter meanwhile the government scrambling to assess the actual damage mannings leaks had caused. Do you consider Chelsea Manning a whistleblower . No. Reporter rick leggitt was a highranking intelligence official at nsa at the time. She didnt go through any of the whistleblowing channels that she had. She could have gone to the judge advocate general. She could have gone to her congressional representatives. They would have welcomed that. You didnt think any of it was going to threaten National Security . No. There are some higherups in the Intelligence Community who would argue, youre a lowlevel analyst, theres no way you could have known the outcome of that would have been. Right. But these are the reports that i work with. Im the subject Matter Expert for this. And yet one could argue she was willing to put her own liberty and her own military career on the line in order to expose these. Does that sound extraordinarily arrogant to you . It does to me. In what way . Its to say that my judgment is better than that of everybody else, and so im going to take this upon myself to make this decision with consequences i couldnt possibly understand and im going to do it because it makes me feel like im doing the right thing. Thats the definition of arrogance. Reporter turns out some of the lowlevel Army Battlefield reports that manning leaked were found in osama bin ladens compound after his death. You may have been motivated to get the information into the public sphere, but you might have also given it to our enemies. Right, but i have a responsibility to the public. Its not black and white. Its complicated. Reporter but the law was clear. Back in the states, the militarys response, severe. 22 charges, many under the espionage act. She was facing up to 136 years in prison. Now in a military brig at quantico, nine months of solitary confinement before her courtmartial even began. The military says for her own protection. What were those days like for you . Its a mind game. Youre sitting in a room by yourself. The u. N. Investigator called it cruel and inhuman. Right. Reporter manning ultimately pled guilty to some charges and after a twomonthlong courtmartial the verdict, the army private convicted of leaking americas secrets but spared by the judge of the most serious charge, aiding americas enemies. Reporter the sentence handed down the longest ever for spilling classified information. Here you are, 25 years old. When they said 35 years in prison, what went through your mind . Youre thinking more about how am i going to get through the next day . Reporter mannings appeals lawyers, vince ward, david hammond, and nancy hallender say the military was trying to make an example of her. They overcharged and they overreacted. And tried to turn it into the case of the century. Set the whistleblowers free reporter her case striking a nerve about the precarious balance between Government Accountability no, he shouldnt be prosecuted. Reporter and protecting the nations secrets. Nominate him for the nobel prize. I think hes completely a traitor. You cant be messing around with National Security data. He deserves a medal. Whistleblowers play a very important part in our government. Reporter within days of being sentenced, manning became the poster child for another cause. And more controversy. What made you decide to come out as trans after being sentenced . I had to be who i am. Reporter but at ft. Leavenworth, a mens military prison, she had to fight for her right to exist as a transgender woman. So your despair was not with the 35year prison sentence, it was much more immediate. It had more to do with your needing to be chelsea . Yeah. Id never done that. Id never been able to be who i was. Reporter at first the military denied mannings request for medical treatment for her gender transition. What would you say to those who feel that taxpayers shouldnt be paying for hormone treatments . Well, you know, its health care is something that prisoners have a right to. Trans health care is necessary. In what way is Trans Health Care necessary medical care . Literally keeps me alive. Keeps me from feeling im in the wrong body. Like i get these horrible used to get these horrible feelings like i want to rip my body apart. Its really, really awful. Health care for transgender people is not cosmetic, it is not experimental. Reporter but with the help of aclu civil rights lawyer chase strangio, manning was eventually granted hormone therapy, undergarments, and makeup, all heralded as landmark victories. She was the first person to receive hormone therapy in a military prison. Chelsea needs us now more than ever. I will never stop fighting for chelsea and my transgender siblings. I want people to see the truth. Reporter mannings following on the outside growing. Bolstered by her prolific writing and tweeting about everything ranging from her thoughts on Government Transparency to sharing her favorite play lists. While outside, mannings supporters were fighting to sway the court of public opinion, from behind bars think that you could see that chelseas state of mind was that she was deteriorating throughout the process of the appeal. And you grew so despairing that you tried to take your life . Yes. Its a very dark place. Youre youre like, if i cant be me, then who am i . You just want the pain to stop. The pain of not knowing who you are or why you are this way. You just want it to go away. Reporter to make matters worse she was sent to solitary confinement. The prison said that she interfered with the good order and discipline of the prison by attempting to kill herself, is just a horrendous thought if you think about it. She was punished for trying to survive, and then she was punished for trying to die. And that was just an incredibly bleak, hard time that was during the summer of 2016. Reporter so her legal team decided that asking president obama for mercy, for a shorter sentence, might be chelseas only hope. When we come back i wrote this letter to obama. And it was real and it was raw and it was only intended for him. mmm. This new beneful grain free is so healthy. Oh farmraised chicken mmm. Thats some really good chicken. I dont think ive ever tasted chicken like this. What . Here come the accents. Blueberries and pumpkin. Wow. That was my favorite bite so far. 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Reporter but last fall, seven years into a 35year sentence at a mens military prison, the transgender soldier was growing desperate for a way out. I wrote this letter to obama. Im just like, please give me clemency. And it was real and it was raw and it was only intended for him. The bottom line is this. Im living through a cycle of anxiety, anger, hopelessness reporter her letter part of a plea for a shorter sentence. As a person who did not intend to harm the interests of the United States reporter the request, including letters of support submitted by her legal team, vincent ward and nancy hallender. I dont think any of us really thought there was much of a chance. Reporter but then, early this year, a shocker. I got this call from my receptionist saying, the white house is on the phone. And the voice on the other end said it all in one sentence. Good afternoon, everybody. The president has commuted your clients sentence and is going to announce it in two minutes. I just screamed. I screamed. Oh my god i feel very comfortable that justice has been served. The only person in the entire military who ever took care of chelsea was her commander in chief. President obama. In this new cyber age, were going to have to make sure that we continually work to find the right balance of accountability and openness and transparency that is the hallmark of our democracy. Then i tried to get myself together and said, does chelsea know . Six security personnel come and grab me. I dont know whats going on, whats going on . The cnn ticker said, president obama commutes Chelsea Mannings sentence. And im like, okay. Reporter like everything in her story, her commutation triggered backlash. To commute private mannings sentence was a mistake. The reaction, rage, frustration, and sorrow my initial reaction was, what . Then once i read about it a little bit and thought about it a little bit i thought, well, thats right, i think shes paid her debt and she needs a chance to start over again with a clean slate. With a felony on her record. Reporter after seven years behind bars on may 17th, in the middle of the night, freedom. Taken out of my cell. Im given a change clothes. We get dropped off in the middle of the night. I dont know where we are. Then i see my lawyers for the first time. I dont think ill ever forget the moment when chelsea looked back at us and just said, hey. The first time chelsea and i hugged each other, really touched each other, was when she got out. It was a very, very, very powerful and moving moment for me. Because at the prison we werent allowed to hug. It made it real. It was a tactile feeling of reality. So the next day i was surrounded by nature and beauty. And people were beautiful. Because they werent wearing the same uniform as everyone else. Reporter for manning, this newfound freedom has many meanings. She could now begin her life as a free woman. Tweeting this photo saying, hello, world. You havent spoken to president obama. What would you say to him, if you could . Thank you. For giving me a chance, thats all i wanted. You wanted a chance. Thats all i asked for was a chance. Thats it. And this is my chance. Reporter but mannings fight is not yet over. Shes still appealing her conviction, convinced that her case could have greater implications for us all. This case really is about what are the scope of the whistleblower protections for people who possess National Security information . This is a fundamental issue of free speech in this country. If we dont have free speech, we dont have a democracy. And this gets right to the core of that. Reporter yet nowadays theres another cause thats become just as dear to her heart. Youve got thousands of letters, many from transgender children. What was their message to you . That i need unconditional love. They were seeing in me what i was looking for when i was their age. Thats a lot of responsibility to have. You are loved, chelsea. You are an inspiration to so many of us. Witnessing your courage has given me the strength to come out as trans too. Whats the emotional reaction when you read a letter like that . I was in their shoes once. And i needed somebody to have the courage to do that too. And you said you feel a sense of responsibility to them . What is that responsibility . I dont know yet. I just i just know theyre watching. What would you say to them . Be who you are. You have support now. If youre struggling, dont do what i did and run away from it. Things are better. Reporter at 29, she says shes finally getting comfortable in her own skin. Youre willing to accept that some people see you as a traitor . And you know, okay, you know like i disagree. Reporter for someone who broke the law, saying her goal was to spark debate, shes certainly not shying away from it now. I get the sense that you are still going to use your voice, that this is not the last weve heard from Chelsea Manning. No. Im definitely going to speak. Im definitely going to speak my mind. But what that is is going to depend on whats important to me at the time. Youre giving yourself some time to figure it out . Absolutely. Well be right back. You love them together, but youve never had em quite like this. At red lobsters lobster shrimp summerfest, the lobster and shrimp you love are teaming up in so many new ways. Like new coastal lobster and shrimp, with a lobster tail with butter and herbs, sweet, smoky bbq red shrimp, and shrimp crusted with. Get this. Cape cod kettle chips. Or try lobster and shrimp overboard. A dish this good. Makes you this hungry. Its the highlight of the season, and cant last. So hurry in. What twisted ankle . Ask what muscle strain . 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Com thanks for watching this special edition of nightline, declassified the Chelsea Manning story. Be sure to join the conversation online on our Nightline Facebook page about these important issues that strike at the heart of our democracy. Good night, america