It was a throwaway line at the end of a fundraiser. But it’s fitting that in the Wikileaks era, President Obama was being video recorded when he told a questioner in San Francisco last month that U.S. army private Bradley Manning, who is charged with leaking classified documents to Wikileaks, “broke the law.”
Now attorneys supporting Manning, 23, have seized on that comment to argue that Obama has prejudiced Manning’s court-martial and that charges against Pfc. Bradley should be thrown out.
“President Obama is the Commander-in-chief,” Kevin Zeese, an attorney with the Bradley Manning Support Network told a teleconference for reporters held today to mark the one-year anniversary of Manning’s arrest and imprisonment. “The only way the military can claim there is no undue influence in this case would be a charade–[it would be] officers claiming they are not [listening to] their Commander-in-chief. The military courts have held over and over that if undue influence can be proven the case should be dropped.”