Former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning was jailed again Thursday after refusing for a second time to comply with a grand jury investigating WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, NPR reports. “Facing jail again, potentially today, doesn’t change my stance,” Manning said in Alexandria, Va., before U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga said she was in contempt of court. “I will not cooperate with this or any other grand jury,” Manning said. “So it doesn’t matter what it is or what the case is, I’m just not going to comply or cooperate.” Manning said prosecutors put her in an impossible position despite the Justice Department granting her immunity from self-incrimination.
In addition to being held in custody for the duration of the grand jury’s investigation or until Manning testifies, the judge ordered her to be fined $500 every day that she is in custody after 30 days and $1,000 every day in custody after 60 days. Moira Meltzer-Cohen, a lawyer representing Manning, said, “It is telling that the United States has always been more concerned with the disclosure of those [leaked] documents than with their damning substance.” Manning was released from a military prison in Kansas in 2017, serving about seven years of a 35-year prison term. President Obama shortened her sentence before leaving office. In 2013, Manning pleaded guilty to leaking a trove of military reports and State Department cables to WikiLeaks.