attorney neal minahan fought and won the right for one of his clients to get hormones in prison. civilian prisons do not have a blanket ban on hormone therapy like the military, and taxpayers have been paying for prisoners' therapy for years. "she never really wanted this to be public to begin with." but in court, attorney david coombs used manning's desire to become a woman as an argument for leniency on his sentence. he introduced the photo of manning in a wig and makeup ..and had several doctors testify to his gender identity disorder. so could this very public announcement help manning's case when he comes up for parole? "in this context i don't see why it would." minahan says a parole board will examine manning's crimes and how he behaves at leavenworth - when deciding whether to cut short his sentence. "i don't think they probably should even look at the fact that he.....she now is transgendered in making that determination." regardless of his sex, manning is sentenced to serve 35-years behind bars for leaving nearly a million pages of classified paperwork to wikileaks. he

. >> reporter: minahan said a parole board will examine his crimes and how he behaves at leavenworth in deciding whether to cut short his sentence. >> i don't think they probably should even look at the fact that he, she now is transgender. in making that determination. >> now, you know, chris, manning's attorney says he's going to ask president obama for a presidential pardon next week. they've been trying to use this whole gender identification issue as something that might help them in that regard. how likely is it the president will consider it? >> reporter: not likely at all. you know, a presidential pardon is the highest form of clemency and it really signifies a forgiveness of the crime. the obama administration has gone after whistle-blowers vigorously. the military prosecutors wanted to put manning away for 60 years, try to convict him on aiding the enemy and to grant a pardon at this point would simply really be wasting the millions of dollars that it cost to put on this trial. >> all right. thank you very much, chris lawrence. >>> and news now on a major terror trial that