Whistleblower Chelsea Manning on Iraq, Prison and Running for Senate

Fifteen years ago this month, the U.S. invasion of Iraq began. Today we spend the hour with the war’s most famous whistleblower, Chelsea Manning, in her first live television interview. While serving as an Army intelligence analyst in Iraq, Manning leaked a trove of documents in 2010 about the Iraq War to WikiLeaks. She also leaked diplomatic cables, as well as information on Guantánamo and the U.S. War in Afghanistan. It would become the largest leak of classified data in U.S. history. Manning was caught and eventually sentenced to 35 years in prison—the longest sentence ever given to a whistleblower in the United States. Last year, President Obama granted her clemency in one of his final acts in office. She had written to the president requesting what she described as a “first chance at life.” Since her release, Manning has emerged as a leading activist for trans rights and greater transparency. She has been featured in the pages of Vogue, where she was photographed by Annie Leibovitz, and was named 2017 Newsmaker of the Year by Out magazine. In January, she announced her bid for the U.S. Senate in Maryland, challenging Democratic Senator Ben Cardin, who is seeking a third term.