How did Manning get access to all these documents? Something is horribly wrong with this story. There had to be a high level insider involved.
Really, I could see him getting the military stuff but not the civilian state dept stuff.
I doubt it is just manning.
From what I've heard, the top level of classification of the documents was Secret. It's fairly common for lower level folks to be involved in the handling and distribution of Secret level documents. They have to be cleared for it.
From what I hear, literally millions of military/gov types had access to this info—but apparently only one of them was a bitter, broken-hearted, Lady GaGa-loving DADT case willing to spend life behind bars in order to spite Hillary Clinton.
Security clearances are granted by a need to know, not rank. An E-1 can have a SECRET or even Top SECRET clearance and once he accesses SIPRnet,a whole other world is open.