Monday, October 9, 2017

Chelsea Manning Finds a Sympathetic Crowd at New York Appearance



By Jocelyn Noveck, The Associated Press

NEW YORK - She may have been disinvited by Harvard and turned away from Canada, but Chelsea Manning earned applause, laughter and even some tears of empathy on Sunday from a friendly crowd at the annual New Yorker Festival.

Manning, who was released in May after seven years in military prison, was by turns impassioned, defensive, humorous and occasionally tearful in a panel discussion with New Yorker writer Larissa MacFarquhar.

She became emotional when asked what she thought the best result had been from her leaking of hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks. “Look, I haven’t had time to deal with these questions,” she said. “All I’ve been doing is fighting for my life for the last seven years.”

The 29-year-old transgender woman was known as Bradley Manning when she was convicted and sentenced to 35 years in prison. In his last days in office, President Barack Obama commuted the rest of her sentence.

Manning has made only a few appearances since her release. Last month, Harvard University reversed a decision to name her a visiting fellow after CIA director Mike Pompeo scrapped a planned appearance over the designation, calling Manning an “American traitor.”

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Source: The News-Herald NATION-WORLD (via The Empire Report) 

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