Chelsea Manning ordered back to jail after refusing to testify in WikiLeaks probe

A federal judge on Thursday ordered Chelsea Manning back to jail for the second time this year after she refused to testify before a grand jury investigating WikiLeaks.

The former Army intelligence analyst was in a federal courthouse in Virginia just outside Washington, D.C., to ask a judge to quash a subpoena for her to provide grand jury testimony.

{mosads}G. Zachary Terwilliger, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said at a press conference after the hearing that he plans to pursue the subpoena for Manning’s testimony, noting she has been granted immunity in the proceedings.

Manning was previously incarcerated for two months for refusing to testify before a grand jury on the same matter. She was released last week when the term of that jury expired.

“Attempting to coerce me with a grand jury subpoena is just not going to work,” Manning said at a press conference ahead of Thursday’s hearing. “I will not cooperate with this or with any grand jury.”

Manning said the questions presented to her were similar to those she answered several years ago about leaking classified information to WikiLeaks, and suggested the jury could look at those records if they wanted answers to their questions.

She also weighed in on the recent indictment of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is fighting extradition to the U.S., calling it a “bananas case.”

Manning questioned why she was called before the grand jury in the first place, if the request is related to Assange’s indictment.

“If this is for a case in which there’s already an indictment, why is there a grand jury subpoena?” she asked.

Legal experts haven’t ruled out the possibility of the U.S. introducing additional charges against Assange.

Manning pleaded guilty to leaking classified materials to WikiLeaks in 2013, and served seven years of a 35-year sentence before former President Obama commuted her sentence in 2017.