Should the judge, however, did convict Private 1st Class Manning of numerous other accounts including violating the Espionage Act so he's still facing a maximum of 136 years behind bars. 

 

The Manning case obviously has touched off a furious debate over the actual harm that Manning has done and whether the government initially over stated the damage. Like the NSA leaker Edward Snowden, Private 1st Class Manning has been called a traitor by some and hero by others, and frankly, everything in between. 

 

Let's talk about it with senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin and only on 360 Glenn Greenwald, investigative journalist and columnist for Britain's "Guardian" paper. He broke the Snowden story. 

 

Jeff, let me start with you. What's your reaction to the verdict? 

 

I thought it was a good verdict. I think the charge of helping the enemy was excessive and I think it was good that the judge acquitted him of that charge, but I think what Manning did was appalling. 

 

I think he betrayed his fellow members of the military. He betrayed the foreign service and he should be going to prison and he will be. 

 

Glenn, I know you disagree. 

 

I do. I think the verdict and I also think that Jeff's comments kind of underscore what a lot of people really hate about Washington, which is that if you're sufficiently rich and powerful and well-connected in Washington, the laws don't apply to you. You don't get punished. The only people who do are people like Bradley Manning. 

 

The theory that the government used, one of which was not successful but much, many of which were, was that he engaged in espionage and helped the enemy because the material that he caused to be published on the Internet ended up being helpful to Osama bin Laden. 

 

Bob Woodward has written book after book after book, and has become extremely rich by publishing secrets way more sensitive than anything Bradley Manning ever published. Nothing that Manning published was top secret, unlike what Bob Woodward publishes. 

 

And yet nobody would ever talk about Bob Woodward the way that Jeff Toobin just did or his sources because he is in good standing in Washington. His sources are high-level officials in the White House. They leak all the time. Washington is nothing about leaks. And yet the only people who get punished for it are people who are marginalized in Washington and that's a broader reflection of how the law is abused. 

 

Jeff, you do have people leaking all the time for political reasons. 

 

You do have some leaking going on and, you know, I, we could have a debate on a case-by-case basis but Bradley Manning released 700,000 cables including the life's work of a lot of foreign service officers who risk their lives and the people they talk to risk their lives to talk to American officials, and the idea that Bradley Manning has the right, and it was somehow justified, in releasing this material, I think is just completely wrong.