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12:10 AM EST Two reports on Manning’s testimony (more to be posted tomorrow) are here and here.
11:30 PM EST Here’s an update I did for HuffPost Live. (Drag the player to the 29:45 mark.)
7:27 PM EST Manning mentioned how David House was going to a “particular blogger” to share details of his visits with him. He removed House because he was visiting the facility and he had told him he didn’t want to “stir up” the media. “We’re at level of trust where I just want you to talk to me if you want to be my friend.” He said they had mutual friend, Daniel Clark.
Manning realized over time he was going to this blogger.” He didn’t want him going to this particular blog immediately following visitation. (This was and had to be Firedoglake editor-in-chief Jane Hamsher, who was driving him to Quantico for visits. However, it is not specifically clear from testimony how Manning knew he was going to talk to a blogger. His lawyer, David Coombs, or David House could have told him at some point.)
He also said he removed his father because he had come by a few times and then, in early 2011, “he came by out of the blue.” He did an interview later on that day with PBS FRONTLINE. Manning said he had just had a conversation with him about being “glad nobody from his family was engaging in interviews and doing press.” He did the interview that same day.
When Manning found out, he didn’t want to have his father visiting anymore. And he found he had basically taken advantage of interview to get “plane tickets.”
7:25 PM EST David Coombs finished cross-examining Manning. I will be doing a full report that will go up very soon.
5:17 PM EST Manning is on the stand testifying:
Bradley Manning had one master sergeant who was his counselor who was telling him that Dr. Hochter was not actually sending representations to remove him from Prevention of Injury (POI) watch, so he thought for a while he could not trust his doctor. (Hochter was sending recommendations to remove Manning from POI watch).
Manning liked hearing about current events: “It grounds me,” the big world, as opposed to my little cell
One guard wondered when Bradley Manning would get off “Manning watch”
Manning says there was very little difference between being on Suicide Risk & Prevention of Injury status at Quantico
He says he’s “more of a nonfiction book” person. Read philosophy. Authors he likes: Brian Greene, Richard Dawkins
Manning: ‘If I needed toilet paper I would stand to attention and shout: “Detainee Manning requests toilet paper!”’
Manning is smiling & energetic while giving testimony. Very intelligent. Really great to hear from him finally
He said in Kuwait he felt suicidal but didn’t want to die, wanted to get out of “animal cage” where he was being held
He thought when he left Kuwait military might move him to Guantanamo or Djibouti so was pleased to end up at Quantico
3:30 PM EST Bradley Manning takes stand to testify
1:30 PM EST Judge Army Col. Denise Lind accepted some of Bradley Manning’s proposed and anticipated pleas. She determined that eight of those pleas were proper pleas to lesser-included offenses in the charges and specifications.
He did not plead guilty to aiding the enemy, stealing an unclassified global address list or committing any computer crime offenses under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). The judge found to be acceptable lesser-included offenses Charge 2, Specification 2, which was the unauthorized possession of video and willful communication of it to a person not entitled to receive it. She accepted lesser-included offenses of Specifications 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10 and 15 of Charge 2
The judge accepted the plea to Specification 5 of Charge 3 as written.
Then, there were “irregular pleas” which the judge could not accept. I’ll get into this more later this afternoon. Court is coming back from recess.
UPDATE – 11:30 AM EST Col. Rick Malone, a psychiatrist who treated Manning from January 2011 until he transferred to Leavenworth, took the stand. He also worked with Dr. Hocter, who testified yesterday. He was aware of Manning’s condition when he came to the brig in July 2010.
More soon.
Original Post
Testimony from witnesses continues in the latest hearing in the court martial of Pfc. Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of releasing classified information to WikiLeaks. The defense is arguing Manning was subjected to “unlawful pretrial punishment” while he was held at the Quantico Marine Brig and has spent the past couple of days cross-examining commanding officers and psychiatrists.
Navy Captain Dr. William Hocter, a psychiatrist who was seeing Manning and making recommendations to remove him from Prevention of Injury status, gave testimony from the stand yesterday that indicated his recommendations had been consistently ignored by Quantico Brig officers. He stated at “other brigs and at civilian jails” he had worked at it had not been the case that his recommendations were mostly ignored.
Hocter suggested the belief among commanders that he was a “suicide risk” had more to do with security than his mental health. “We had been patient and we had watched and over time he had not been suicidal,” Hocter said. “It did not seem to make a lot of sense at the time,” to have him on POI. ”It was not something that would be helpful to Manning’s adjustment in Brig. It wasn’t very good use of personnel.”
Importantly, Hocter noted that someone who indicates suicide or takes action “contemplating suicide” is not necessarily someone who needs to be on POI for rest of detention. “People go into psychiatric hospitals and then they come out when they are no longer deemed to be a risk,” he noted. “If they get treatment, there is no reason to believe they would always be suicidal.”
Hocter provided a bit of an assessment of Manning for the judge. He explained that Manning had a “chronic mild depressive condition.” He had been anxious to begin with and had a “personality structure that was impulsive tending toward moodiness.” He said of Manning being held in conditions that essentially amounted to solitary confinement, “By nature we’re social creatures. We all have times to be around people. And this was a difficult time in his life as he’s facing extended legal problems.”
It was not typical for a detainee to be held in POI for nine months. “That amount of time under precautions was unprecedented. Degree of concern for safety and security was beyond anything I had seen at the brig,” Hocter described.
And, in one of the more lighter moments of the proceedings thus far, Hocter said dancing in his cell did not bother him. “He’s sitting in his cell all day,” he said. He’s “got to do something to amuse himself,” he said smiling and leaning forward in his chair. He added Manning was “certainly not a Marine. And, “He had his own personality. There’s no doubt about it. He was a lot more free-spirited.” The gallery erupted into laughter and Manning’s defense lawyer, David Coombs, tried to hold back a laugh.
For more updates from yesterday’s proceeding, here’s the live blog for Day 2.
*
More media here today than yesterday. Press continues to anticipate Manning taking the stand. However, he is not scheduled as a witness, who will testify today. The defense may put him on the stand during rebuttal—after the prosecution witnesses testify.
I am here covering the proceedings. Check here and at the top of the post for updates throughout the afternoon/early evening. Also, follow @kgosztola for the latest developments in the court martial.
40 Comments
Thank you for the report and especially, thank you for being there.
Kevin,
I won’t fill up the comment section with updates today. Unless, of course you would like the documentation. Just say so and I will do all I can to help.
Question: One report this morning said Lind agreed to some of the charges being dropped. Can you confirm or discharge that report?
Hmm! Must have this info.
Prosecution must be desperate if they’re going to the OBL well.
Sounds like a bit of a reach.
“Judge Army Col. Denise Lind accepted some of Bradley Manning’s proposed and anticipated pleas.” I thought the Judge wasn’t going to accept any pleas until the unlawful pretrial punishment was determined. Am I missing something?
ON THE STAND
Guardian coverage. I guess Ed Pilkington is there too.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/29/wikileaks-bradley-manning-gives-evidence
*taps fingers on desk*
The anticipation is killing me, here…
Oh, never mind. Lots of tweets from Kevin on this.
update above
Er, what’s the deal with Djbouti? I’ve never even heard of a site there.
Ya know…I really miss Alonya’s debriefing Kevin on her show after a busy day at the Manning proceedings. Shame she left RT.
That Manning will go down in History as a hell of a MAN not like the chicken shit cowards that support the slaughter he exposed.
Bless the MAN, Mr.Manning
Manning speaks.
Thank you, Kevin. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
the farce of it all is that a charge for an event is now parsed out into manners and adjectives of an event so instead of having a singlle charge as to stealing whatever, a physical event with a solitary encapsulated meaning, you now get charged with ie…..
count type as steal and
count; using both hands comprising to thefts, one with each hand
and
illlegally drinking water on duty during the commission of a crime
and
inattentiveness to regular duty
and
commisstion of an act of unreasonableness of conscience
and
improper display of the uniform in a non-conforming circumstancce
and
abandonement of duty
and
willful act of the commission of a crime
and
spying about for other opportunities during an unscheduled operation
and
improper use of the hands and arms for military purpose
and
commision of an act of sabotage
and
being disrespectful of the military services
and
dishonoring the military service
and
setting a bad example for others
and
using a lightbulb improperly
and
unlawfull use of temperature control resources
and
you get the idea…. but that is now how criminal oppressive fraud regimes thieves are working the public these days – just like they did when Jesus rebuked them for doing the same in his time.
Aargh!
These long drawn out days are horrible. I know that Kevin is tired. It is killing me not to litter up this comment section with what I see coming through.
Not all of us are on twitter or seeing what you see, PeasantParty, so I for one would be happy to have you ‘litter up’ the comments section here. News about Bradley Manning is very welcome news indeed. I can’t believe he got to speak today!
–from The Obsolete Man, Rod Serling
Heh! Big wrap around to you, Teddy! (((Teddy)))
From what I understood earlier today about the Osama docs is that the Military had them specifically declassified so they could use them against Manning.
I say to heck with that. They/He watched CNN, MSNBC and all sorts of cable and sat tv news in the US. They read magazines etc. From what we all saw from the Wikileaks docs there was nothing that posed a threat to the US or the military. “Those” people “over there already knew it cause they are living through the horror. It is the US that didn’t know what our own military and foreign policy wonks were doing!
I’d also like to say that although I am happy Defense got their time and Manning spoke, I wish they had waited until after prosecution was heard.
Not sure how Defense is going to counter now.
Yikes! Would that be here at FDL? We are all huge supporters of his.
Good cause he acted like a real ass on that program.
I would interpret this as Manning expressing displeasure with House, not FDL or Jane.
Hey, You! I’m so damned proud of you I can’t stand it!
Is it okay if I litter up the comments with tweets?
I had always thought Manning wanted House to be communicating with the world about Manning’s confinement. The way this reads, it looks like Manning wanted House to be a visitor for moral support–not a loudspeaker to the greater world.
If so, I wonder if Manning underestimated the benefit House did getting the story out about Manning’s confinement conditions in Quantico.
Also, I thought Manning wanted the media to take notice.
Manning’s wish to avoid stirring up the media implies, to me, that Manning’s confinement conditions worsened in proportion to the attention his story was receiving.
Surprised by Manning’s statement. Wondering what Manning thought would come from laying low.
I’m sure he is getting the very best of psychologically manipulative care.
I wouldn’t put much stock one way or the other.
Including, Manning represents a principle as much as a human being. Probably useful not to get to too close to the “human interest” side of things.
Kevin’s coverage is what was known a generation ago as Pulitzer quality. Excellent coverage and sorting out of the trial testimony.
I second that. I’ve checked the threads for tweets you posted. Thanks for keeping us informed when we are away.
Litter away. I am going to furiously work to get together all of Manning’s testimony from today for posts that will go up in next 12-24 hours.
Its said that the Constitution was itself the product of secrecy. But Madison insisted that a self governed nation is a farce if the people don’t have access to the knowledge they need for the task. We’ve gone beyond any notion of balance. We need a total public audit of the US government and we need to strip away all these nonsense claims of national security. The government in its recent assertions has become dangerously unaccountable and by its very power was already the greatest threat- per the philosophy behind the Constitution.
NIST officially claims a furniture fire brought down building 7 and refuses FOIAs by claiming satisfying them would cause public unrest. Its hard not to think the National Security state is harboring or is beholden to the people responsible. Its hard not to see the National Security state itself as the greatest threat.
Julian Assange recently commented on the irony of the official story that the head of the top spy agency was brought down over an invasion of his private life through email. When we were children our parents used to tell us people in other nations were much worse off because their governments would go through their mail. Now American law enforcement insists its must be able to go through our mail (email.)
We can remember Ben Franklin and comment that those who would trade liberty for security deserve neither. But according to the Security State exposing the criminality of the Security State to the self governed is supposed to be a crime. This looks like a criminal trying to prevent his own prosecution through prosecuting those who would expose him. What they learned from Watergate is that their should for instance be no journalism to check government. Its tyranny. The best remedy for this is probably a total public audit. This presents a risk to the survival of the state and the nation but so does tyranny. The security state is claiming that it can censor anything it wants and resisting this is a crime. So that means anytime someone opposes its power to shut people up they are supposed to have committed a crime.
We need to trade the national security state for total transparency. We need to stop enforcing secrecy at any level. And stop enforcing it through the courts. If the government doesn’t want information out it can do a better job on its procedures but it shouldn’t have legal recourse and it shouldn’t even be enforcing private secrets. We should also stop being mislead by stupid arguments on launch codes and troop movements- these are technicalities. Launch codes, for instance, routinely change and are backed multiple systems to prevent having to rely even on this limited notion of secrecy.
We should also seriously question the logic, beyond intimidation and eroding rights of any claimed value regarding the personal information collected on individuals. Having a bunch of numbers on someone isn’t going to tell the people spying anything worth knowing about anyone who is really worth knowing about. Profiles are for taking people and situations out of context, its an objective pipe dream. We should also stop being swayed by stupid expediency based ticking-time-bomb arguments. The Germans had a Manhattan project of their own so we probably shouldn’t buy the sales pitch for secrecy on it- same with Enigma codes etc. We have to stop letting them conflate privacy with secrecy. Privacy yes, secrecy no.
When the national security state shuts people up when it censors people or wants the record-less right to disappear people on military authority it is basically murdering people. Why would it need this power except to conserve inequity. It hardly deserves the recent title reserved for enablers of “respectable murderer” Its in a total survival mode, its very existence is threatened and its claims seem desperate. Its total panic over Wikileaks is also troubling. As are idiotic claims that cyber crime could be equal or worse than nuclear war.
So again it wants to open everyone’s mail so we have no basis for privacy and no basis for rights really. Then ironically exposing the evidence where it was essentially following everyone around with a camera leads to a breach of everyone’s privacy. It wants to audit us but we need to audit it. It wants to convert everyone’s privacy into secrecy so we basically lose all of our rights. The national security state justifies its existence with terror, to survive it generates terror.
I know he screwed up (“with an explanation”) and that our government wants to make an example out of him, but I think he’s been punished way more than enough and should be released with time served.
Thanks, Kevin, and FDL.
David House was writing about his visits here on FDL (and discussing them on MSNBC) for months before he was taken off the visitor list.
The “no publicity” strategy was David Coombs strategy, Bradley’s military appointed attorney, who is pretty much Bradley’s sole point of contact with the outside world. At the time House was taken off the guest list Coombs was under a lot of pressure from the military to shut down a rather successful publicity campaign fronted by House that as you note ultimately led to Manning’s transfer to Leavenworth.
Coombs will still be a military attorney with military clients long after Manning is gone. And nobody but Coombs knows why he suddenly felt it was best to tell Bradley to sever from House. But I never saw any indication House was a disloyal friend to Bradley. He traveled down to Quantico for months at his own expense and was suddenly cut off without any explanation.