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Chelsea Manning breaks friendship with 'greedy, unprincipled' Glenn Greenwald

'Friendships that depend on political agreement were never 'friendships,' just cynical transactions,' the Pulitzer prize-winning journalist retorted

Wikileaks whistleblower Chelsea Manning recently went on a Twitter rant, ripping one of her biggest allies, Glenn Greenwald. Though she did not provide reasons for her anger towards the Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, she claimed that she’s “terrified” and “embarrassed” of him, and also called him “greedy, unprincipled.”

Taking to Twitter Thursday afternoon, September 2, the former intelligence analyst​ shared, “Glenn greenwald, i don’t have $10,000 right now but if i get it i want to send it back to you from a donation you once did. i can’t deal with this anymore. im terrified of you and everything you do. you’re greedy, unprincipled, and im embarrassed for ever considering you a friend.”

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She continued, “Last night during the floods i decided that im no longer going to be afraid of saying what’s on my mind anymore or taking a stand from the people that i once considered allies but who have chosen to bash, harass, humiliate, intimidate, and lie to get ahead,” before adding, “To those he has hurt im sorry i didn’t say anything I was scared and that’s my fault.”

There was a time when Greenwald, the co-founding editor of The Intercept, had advocated for Manning while she was behind bars for espionage. But in 2017, Manning was released from prison, and then in 2020, Greenwald left the investigative news site he helped create, claiming an article he’d written on Hunter Biden was censored by the editors. Reports have stated that following his departure from The Intercept, he started making his ways towards the right and also made strange statements about transgender people. Manning is also a transgender.

But Greenwald also did not keep his mouth shut and fired back at Manning’s tweets. The former lawyer replied, “Friendships that depend on political agreement were never "friendships," just cynical transactions. When she was in prison trying repeatedly to kill herself, I was one of the only one who visited, spent hours on the phone, raising money for her. No good deed goes unpunished.”

He went on to say: “Anyway, sometimes people are nice to you as long as you're of use to them and provide them things they want, then turn on you when you can't or won't any longer. As long as you know you gave and defended them with the right motives -- as I did -- your conscience should clean. Lots of people on the left -- not all, but many -- mistake friendships for political agreements, such that when the political agreement erodes, for them the "friendship" does, too. Friendships that don't transcend politics or require political agreement have no value.”

Greenwald shared, “While Julian Assange is rotting in prison, @ChelseaManning recently smeared him when he couldn't defend himself, announcing that if she had to do it over again, she would not have leaked to WikiLeaks. Maligning someone unjustly rotting in prison is not an attribute I value. Anyway, as I've long said, this is what left-liberal spaces have become. They all turn on each other, denounce each other, repudiate one another. Their currency is this form of self-victimizing grievance. So grateful I'm not captive to or dependent on it,” before adding: “When I read Chelsea's tweets, I felt it as betrayal from a friend. My reference to helping her through her (publicly reported) suicide attempts was to express why I was hurt, but I see how it was viewed & apologize. I stand by everything else I said & that's my last word on this.”