This, that, and a few minor technicalities.
I've never worried too much about it, knowing he's going to military court and the presumption in military court is that you are guilty, and since he is guilty they are going to have no problem finding him as such locking him up and tossing the key for a few decades. And military prisons are not like regular prisons, they suck on a whole 'nother level.
Treason as defined in the Constitution: "levying War against [the United States], or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort." The Constitution further gives Congress - and Congress alone - the power to declare war. Currently, there is no such declaration, hence no war, hence no treason. Nor is he being charged with treason. So he's not really a traitor in any legal sense.
The side-bar about the Revolutionary War (aside from the fact that there are a lot of Brits in here who would consider it as such) is that actions at the time are not necessarily seen that way in historical perspective. Also note, there was a war on, they actually caused the war, started the war, and pursued the war, which is exactly what treason is.
His case is fairly unique, (though Danial Elsberg's is similar), in that usually giving away classified documents is done as part of an espionage deal. There is no espionage going on here (and if there was, unless it was huge - and it really wasn't - he would be traded back because that's how we did it back in the day with the USSR), there was no foreign country, or foreign power he was supplying. He released this stuff to the citizens of the United States (and everyone else). And, exactly like Elsberg, those documents paint a picture of widespread lying - deceit is the word your looking for - and cover-ups on the part of our government when it comes to dealing with military adventures (ours and others) beyond our borders.
And, let me say a kind word about espionage. Espionage keeps the peace. Espionage is powerful tool in maintaining the peace. Electronic and space-based surveillance by both the US and USSR, as well as more traditional means (pilfering documents), probably averted several wars that could have turned nuclear. All of the Poppa Reagan fan club out there who get all warm and runny at the mere mention of his sainted name should well remember that he said: Trust, but verify. Espionage is how you verify. The other side too. Both sides know that, and despite attempting to keep everything a secret from the other side (and like the present case, most MOST of what is classified is non-information) you actually have to kind-of let them get the stuff they really need. The information that makes them feel more secure. If you want to really go down the rabbit-hole, the closest thing to Alice-In-Wonderland we have is the world of counterespionage during the Cold War, who was getting what and how, very trippy. One person who was heavily involved called it 'A Wilderness of Mirrors." I mean we 'let stuff out' from time to time for various reasons, and such things are very obscure to source.
So, I reserve the right to look through this again and again and wonder if BM was set up. Why this information? Who did this release benefit? Who did it hurt? Is he just a likely fall guy, a patsy, a stooge being manipulated by people much more cunning and smarter (and cold blooded to say the least) than he is/was? And that's often stuff you don't know till years down the road. If ever. And preferably, never.
But given some of the real master spies of the Cold War era, Bradley Manning does not seem to fit the profile. Danial Elsberg was a doctor doing pentagon contract research at a top grade contractor, that's how he had access, how does a PFC get it? So I'm still curious as to how some PFC has all that stuff with so little supervision - unless there is just so much, the sheer volume of it is now, at long last, totally unmanageable. I'll accept that, but that opens a whole new, big, huge problem.
