More than 700,000 diplomatic cables were leaked by Manning, along with battlefield reports from Iraq and Afghanistan and helicopter video footage. The information was first published by WikiLeaks, with The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other media outlets soon following.
Judge Col. Denise Lind refused the prosecution’s assertion that the cables, which were published over two years ago, remain a point of reluctance for foreign citizens when they are approached by US officials overseas. State Department undersecretary Patrick Kennedy testified that the information is still a hindrance to US policy making.
Prior to Wednesday’s decision, Lind granted the defense team a victory by cutting Manning’s largest maximum sentence from 136 years to 90 years. She determined that some of the 20 counts that Manning had been found guilty of could be merged because they were repetitive.
In a motion from the defense, attorneys wrote that “the government takes what should be a 10-year offense and makes it a 20-year offense and unfairly increases Pfc. Manning’s punitive exposure.”
Manning’s lawyers released a schedule for 20 sentencing witnesses they plan to call in the next phase of the sentencing.