National
Gay soldier accused of leaking classified files
Did anger over ‘Don’t Ask’ motivate Manning to act?
Reports that a U.S. Army intelligence analyst who’s accused of leaking classified information is gay have raised questions about whether a resentment of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” could have motivated his alleged crime.
Pfc. Bradley Manning, 22, is the prime suspect in the investigation of leaked video footage showing a U.S. Apache helicopter strike in Baghdad that killed 12 civilians, including employees of a Reuters news agency.
Manning allegedly gave the footage to WikiLeaks, a whistle-blowing website devoted to disclosing the secrets of governments and corporations.
In an instant message conversation with a friend, Manning reportedly said he was responsible for the leak as well as another video showing a 2009 Garani air strike in Afghanistan. He also reportedly claimed to have 260,000 classified U.S. diplomatic cables that would reveal the inner workings of U.S. embassies.
“Hillary Clinton, and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning, and find an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format, to the public,” Manning said in the conversation, according to Wired.com.
Additionally, Manning is a person of interest in an investigation seeking to determine the source of thousands of secret documents leaked related to the Afghanistan war. But as of earlier this week, Manning reportedly hadn’t been formally named as a suspect in the matter.
The charges against Manning are serious. Lt. Col. Rene White, a Pentagon spokesperson, said Manning is under investigation “for allegedly improperly downloading, storing and disclosing to unauthorized third parties classified or sensitive [U.S. government] documents or media.”
White said Manning is being held in the brig at the U.S. Marine Corps base in Quantico, Va.
“Manning will remain in pre-trial confinement as the Army continues its investigation,” White said. “We don’t know if Pfc. Manning is the source of the recently leaked documents. We are assessing them now to determine the potential damage to lives, sources and methods and national security.”
Courtney Whittmann, a spokesperson for U.S. Army Military District of Washington, said Manning could face up to 52 years in prison and a dishonorable discharge as well as forfeiture of all pay and allowances. She said the court of his appearance is yet to be determined.
As this investigation is underway, a report from British media describing Manning as gay is raising questions about whether discontent with “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” contributed to his alleged decision to leak the classified material.
The Daily Telegraph reported that Manning is openly gay and had several postings on his Facebook page that he was unhappy with the military and was going through relationship troubles with a same-sex partner.
At the beginning of May, Manning reportedly wrote he was “livid” after being “lectured by ex-boyfriend,” then later posted that he was “not a piece of equipment” and was “beyond frustrated with people and society at large.”
In the same month, when he was serving at a U.S. military base near Baghdad, Manning reportedly changed his status to: “Bradley Manning is now left with the sinking feeling that he doesn’t have anything left.”
The publicly viewable portion of his Facebook profile this week listed the Washington Blade as among his favorite pages as well as several other LGBT-related pages, including the Human Rights Campaign, gay Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and “REPEAL THE BAN — End ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’”
After Window Media closed the Blade late last year, Manning donated $120 to a “Save the Blade” initiative that helped re-launch the paper, according to Blade records.
Manning has also been seen in gay venues in D.C. and was present at the National Stonewall Democrats’ Capital Champions event in 2009.
Jon Hoadley, a gay activist and former Stonewall Democrats president, is among those who know Manning. Still, Hoadley said he said he didn’t know Manning well and hasn’t seen him in more than a year.
“Other [than] through some Stonewall events and stuff like that — and through a few friends — I didn’t know him really well,” Hoadley said.
Whittmann, the Army military district of Washington spokesperson, said she didn’t immediately know whether “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was a factor in the investigation of Manning, but said she would look to find more information on the matter.
The co-director of OutServe, an organization for LGBT active duty service members, said he was skeptical that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” played a role in Manning’s alleged decision to leak classified information.
OutServe’s co-director, who’s adopted the alias J.D. Smith to avoid being outed under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” said he didn’t think Manning’s discontent with the law led him to his alleged decision to leak classified information.
“From what I’ve being reading on this situation, he had a lot of issues that he was dealing with — not just about his homosexuality,” said Smith, who noted OutServe has had no contact with Manning. “We don’t know all the factors. All the details haven’t come out to the public yet.”
The Family Research Council has seized on reports that Manning is gay to drum up opposition to repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
In an e-mail blast, Tony Perkins, president of FRC, called Manning an “extreme homosexual activist” and said his “fury over the services’ homosexual policy may have led him to publicize highly classified documents about the wars.”
“Unfortunately for all of us, Manning’s betrayal painfully confirms what groups like FRC have argued all along: the instability of the homosexual lifestyle is a detriment to military readiness,” Perkins wrote.
John Aravosis, a gay D.C.-based blogger, responded to the FRC mailing on his website, Americablog.com, calling it evidence of the continued lies and distortion that FRC puts forth on LGBT issues.
“FRC cites the Telegraph, and claims that the Telegraph says Manning has an ‘extensive history’ of campaigning for gay rights,” Aravosis wrote. “In fact, the Telegraph article mentions that Manning once showed up at a single gay rights rally — that’s it. How is that an ‘extensive’ history as an ‘extreme’ gay activist? It’s not.”
Aravosis also disputed the notion that evidence exists showing that anger over “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” led Manning to leak classified information.
“Finally, there’s nothing, anywhere, to suggest that Manning had any ‘fury’ over [‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’], or that, even if he did, such fury led him to leak the documents,” Aravosis said. “Where did FRC come up with it?”
Smith said FRC’s decision to try to solicit funds over the charges against Manning is “pretty awful.”
“There are plenty of instances where straight soldiers have done things as well,” Smith said. “And I don’t think they should [be] playing this as homosexual treason at all. I think that we need to be very careful in how this is portrayed.”
National
Man charged in Mall of America shooting plot inspired by Pulse massacre: report
Suspect exchanged hundreds of messages, pledged loyalty to ISIS
The U.S. Department of Justice charged Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud, 18, of Richfield, Minn., on Oct. 7 with one count of knowingly receiving a firearm and ammunition in order to commit a federal crime of terrorism. Mohamud allegedly planned to carry out a mass-casualty attack in support of ISIS, inspired in part by the Pulse nightclub massacre that took place on June 12, 2016 when then-29-year-old Omar Mateen murdered 49 people and wounded 58 – one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history, and the deadliest targeting the LGBTQ+ community.
According to a DOJ statement release, Mohamud was arrested on Oct. 6 by the FBI, which had arranged to sell him an AK-47 assault rifle, magazines, and ammunition through an undercover FBI employee. Mohamud was arrested shortly after paying $600 in cash and taking possession of those items; he reaffirmed his intention to shoot people at the Mall of America during the transaction.
“Mohamud allegedly sought to carry out a mass-casualty shooting at the Mall of America, expressing a desire to emulate some of the most horrific ISIS-inspired attacks in the United States, including the atrocities at Pulse Nightclub and 2025 New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg in the statement by the DOJ. “The National Security Division will continue to work closely with the FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force to track down and prosecute ISIS-inspired terrorists in the United States.”
According to the complaint, beginning on or about December 2024, Mohamud had exchanged hundreds of messages through multiple social media and messaging apps with a confidential source, and expressed a desire to travel to Somalia to join a designated foreign terrorist organization to fight on their behalf.
The defendant stated many times that if he was unable to travel overseas because of a lack of funds, he planned to carry out a mass-casualty event in Minnesota in support of ISIS.
According to the DOJ, “In July 2026, Mohamud sent messages discussing his intent to carry out a mass-casualty shooting attack at the Mall of America because he claimed it was owned by Jews. He wrote that [he] wanted to kill 30 to 60 people so no one would go there.”
“During the course of his communications, Mohamud stated that he wanted to commit an attack similar to those of the Pulse Nightclub mass-shooting in Orlando, the Bondi Beach mass-shooting in Australia, and the New Year’s Day vehicle-ramming attack in New Orleans.”
This case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Ryan White of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Bejar for the District of Minnesota.
California
Calif. GOP gubernatorial candidate ad ‘disgusting attempt to exploit lesbian intimacy’
Activists, anti-LGBTQ religious leaders criticized Steve Hilton spot
Two women sit on a bed, a Pride flag hanging behind them. One is nervous; the other tells her to be calm and that she’ll do “all the work.” The music swells. The two hold hands and — fill out a ballot voting for Steve Hilton?
This is the new advertisement from the Hilton gubernatorial campaign that is drawing rebuke from both sides of the aisle, but for very different reasons.
Jorge Reyes Salinas, the communications director at Equality California, said the ad was an insult to the queer community.
“This ad is a disgusting attempt to exploit lesbian intimacy for political attention,” he said. The advertisement plays on media tropes that Salinas says “reduce lesbian and bisexual women … to sexual entertainment,” rather than showing them as well-rounded characters. “Any group of the LGBTQ+ community deserves the same dignity and respect as everyone else,” he said.
The ad is truly hyper-sexualized. It ends with one woman telling the other, “Now lick it.” The two pause and stare before she reveals an envelope to send the ballot, and large text pops up saying, “Just try it!”
Salinas characterized the ad as a desperate attempt to get attention from a candidate who is trailing far behind in the polls in heavily Democratic California. The Democratic candidate Xavier Becerra, who is endorsed by Equality California, holds a 25-point lead over Hilton according to recent polling by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies.
Conservatives have also criticized the ad.
Influential evangelical Pastor Jack Hibbs thought the ad was distasteful and said, “lesbianism among college girls and some high school girls that right now is an actual pandemic of social ill.” Republican attorney general candidate Michael Gates said it undermines “the sanctity of the relationship between parents and their children.” This criticism is rather confusing because although the ad features two relatively young women, they both appear to be adults, not minors.
“The comments from Pastor Jack Hibbs should be criticized because there is nothing wrong with two women being attracted to each other,” Salinas said. “We’re calling out the ad’s stereotypes, while also rejecting the homophobia in the response to it … by other Republicans.”
The backlash from Hilton’s own party and supporters shows that an advertisement full of queer innuendo was ill-considered, considering the national GOP’s attacks on LGBTQ people in recent years. Hilton himself has been campaigning against transgender girls and women competing in school sports and using locker rooms that correspond with their gender identity. This context might be why Hilton’s political base responded to the ad just as poorly as the liberal voters he was attempting to court.
Hilton says the ad is part of a new series rolling out before Election Day, showing stereotypical California liberal archetypes voting for Hilton. He claims these ads are authentically filmed with real actors, as opposed to being A.I. generated, like many of his previous ads. One other advertisement has been released so far by the campaign showing a man at a spiritual retreat also being swayed to vote for Hilton, although it is notably absent of sexual innuendo.
Caleb Kaufman is a California Local News Fellow placed with the Los Angeles Blade. The California Local News Fellowship is a state-funded initiative to support and strengthen local news reporting. Learn more about it at fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/cafellows.
2026 Midterm Elections
Trump uses anti-trans slur against Democratic Senate candidate
President mocked Annie Andrews
President Donald Trump used an anti-trans slur against Democratic South Carolina Senate candidate Annie Andrews on Monday as he sought to rally support for Republicans in the state’s Senate race.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump attacked Andrews three times, referring to her as “trannie” while promoting U.S. Sen. Darline Graham (R-S.C.)’s campaign.
Andrews is running against Graham for a Senate seat in the solidly Republican state.
Earlier this year, Graham was specially appointed to the seat following the death of her brother, Lindsey Graham, who represented South Carolina in the Senate from 2003 to 2026.
Andrews, the Democratic nominee from the state, is a pediatrician that lives in Charleston with her three children. She told NBC News that she will “work with anyone to put South Carolina first.”
“As a mom and a pediatrician, I’m in this race to fight for my patients, my three kids, and South Carolina,” Andrews said, adding that “lowering costs and making life better for families across our state is going to take all of us working together.”
Andrews used the attention from the president’s attack to emphasize what she described as a focus on policy issues rather than the culture wars that have dominated much of the political debate.
“If you care more about your bills than the politics in Washington, this campaign is for you,” she added.
Trump’s remarks have drawn criticism from leaders on both sides of the aisle.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) condemned Trump’s words Monday night on social media, calling his attacks on Andrews “despicable.”
“Annie Andrews is a mom and pediatrician who’s always put her community first — and she’s exactly who South Carolina needs representing them in the Senate,” Schumer said on X.
Former South Carolina Gov. David Beasley, a Republican, also criticized the president’s attack on Andrews, urging voters to “reject politics based on division and hate.”
“This is abhorrent. Elections don’t have to be about cruelty and lies. South Carolina deserves better,” Beasley wrote Monday night on X.
South Carolina has not elected a Democratic senator in nearly three decades.
Andrews’s campaign website does not mention her positions on LGBTQ issues.
The Washington Blade reached out to Andrews’s campaign for comment on Trump’s attack and her positions on transgender rights but did not hear back by time of publication.
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U.S. int’l trade negotiator, consultant James Bedore dies at 82
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Calif. GOP gubernatorial candidate ad ‘disgusting attempt to exploit lesbian intimacy’
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