Nightline co-anchor Juju Chang chose a bookstore for the setting of her interview with Chelsea Manning, the former Army private who was sentenced to 35 years in prison for leaking to WikiLeaks.
“Chelsea spent hours and hours a day reading throughout the 7 years she spent in prison,” Chang told TVNewser. “The venue also allowed us to show different sides of her personality.”
One of Pres. Obama’s final actions in office was to commute Manning’s sentence, a move which sparked outrage from some, and praise from others. Some see her as a heroic whistle blower, while others see her as a traitor to the United States. Manning, for her part, maintains she has “nothing but the utmost respect for the military.”
“The mood in the room was calm, upbeat. She didn’t seem nervous or like someone who has lived in the center of a political storm for years,” Chang told us. “Chelsea was quite self-assured and surprisingly soft-spoken.”
Chang said the interview with Manning was a very difficult one for a variety of reasons, and she described her as “a work in progress.”
“We spoke to a number of people in the intelligence community who say that there is still no way to know what the long-term impact of her disclosures could be,” Chang said, adding, “surprisingly many of them agree with President Obama that, unlike Snowden, she has paid her debt to society and should be able to move on.”
The interview, which is Manning’s first since being released from jail, airs tonight on a special edition of Nightline.