The president's remarks drew immediate fire from some tracking the case. | AP Photo Obama says Manning 'broke the law'

President Barack Obama’s assertion at a recent California fundraiser that Bradley Manning “broke the law” may have run afoul of presidential protocol, according to legal analysts who have been tracking the case of the Army private charged in the WikiLeaks case.

“I have to abide by certain classified information,” Obama said on a video that quickly began to circulate among media outlets Friday. “If I was to release stuff, information that I’m not authorized to release, I’m breaking the law. … We’re a nation of laws. We don’t individually make our own decisions about how the laws operate. … He broke the law.”


Obama’s remarks Thursday were made after a group of protesters interrupted him with a song pleading for Manning’s release. Obama had completed his speech and was circulating through the room when Logan Price, a 27-year-old activist, said he went up to the president and asked why he hadn’t addressed the concerns of the protesters.

“I thought that Bradley Manning was the most important whistleblower of my generation,” Price said in an interview. “I was just disappointed that he didn’t talk about it during his speech.”

Until now, the biggest point of controversy surrounding Manning had been about the conditions under which he was being detained at a marine base in Quantico, Va. Former State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley offered his resignation after criticizing the Defense Department’s treatment of Manning, and Obama’s only comments about the accused whistleblower had been about that issue.

“I have actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures that have been taken in terms of his confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards. They assure me that they are,” Obama told reporters at a news conference in March. “I can’t go into details about some of their concerns, but some of this has to do with Private Manning’s safety as well.”

But the president’s comment that Manning “broke the law” drew immediate fire from some tracking Manning’s case.

“The comment was not appropriate because it assumes that Manning is guilty,” Steven Aftergood, a classified information expert at the Federation of American Scientists, told POLITICO. “The president got carried away and misspoke. No one should mistake a charge for a conviction — especially the nation’s highest official.”

Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice and military law expert, predicted that before the end of the day, the White House will have issued a corrective statement.

“Commenting on Manning’s conditions of confinement is one thing — I would have strongly advised him to not comment about Manning’s guilt,” Fidell told POLITICO.

But White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said Obama was in fact making a general statement that did not go specifically to the charges against Manning. “The president was emphasizing that, in general, the unauthorized release of classified information is not a lawful act,” he said Friday night. “He was not expressing a view as to the guilt or innocence of Pfc. Manning specifically.”

Aftergood and Fidell agreed that Obama remarks — while unfortunate — probably will not affect whether Manning will receive a fair trial. “It’s not that hard to ensure that unlawful command influence hasn’t in fact prejudiced the right to a fair trial,” Fidell explained. “If the case goes to a court marshal, the military court will have to make sure that none of the members of the military jury have been influenced by the president’s stated belief that Manning broke the law.”

And what about Obama’s assertion that “I have to abide by certain rules of classified information?” There seems to be an error in this assumption too, as the president has the power to define and authorize what information is considered “classified.”

“It’s a misstatement: It presumes that the classification rules are a matter of law, when in fact they are a matter of they are based in executive order,” Aftergood said. “There are rules and procedures governing the de-classification process, but those rules also are based in presidential authority. The president has supreme authority over what is classified.”

In other words, Obama can “declassify” anything he wants, Fidell said. “That one got away from him a little. In a way, it’s a hypothetical that could never happen.”

Perhaps the president, who himself is a legal scholar, was thrown off by the earlier incident. <>

“He seems to have had a bad day, because he said a number of things that really were not coherent,” Aftergood said.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated when President Barack Obama made his comments about Bradley Manning. He made them at the same fundraiser at which protestors interrupted him with a song about Manning.

CORRECTION: Corrected by: Burgess Everett @ 04/22/2011 09:47 PM CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated when President Barack Obama made his comments about Bradley Manning. He made them at the same fundraiser at which protesters interrupted him with a song about Manning.