Pence on ‘Special Report’: Commuting Manning’s Sentence Was ‘Mistake’

Chelsea Manning is the USA soldier, formerly known as Bradley, who has been granted clemency by Barack Obama six years into a 35 year sentence for espionage and other offences. Manning was sentenced to only 35 years in prison for stealing classified information and disseminating it to Wikileaks.

Citing the time served and saying Manning’s sentence was “disproportionate”, Obama said: “It made sense to commute, and not pardon, her sentencing”.

Barack Obama has given his final press conference before he leaves the White House.

“I’m relieved and thankful that the president is doing the right thing and commuting Chelsea Manning’s sentence”, Strangio said in a statement released by the ACLU.

Obama also granted 64 other pardons and 207 other commutations, mostly of drug dealers.

GOP House Speaker Paul Ryan called the clemency “just outrageous”.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says Obama may have saved Manning’s life by granting the former Army intelligence analyst clemency. She is set to be released from prison in May. “I feel very comfortable that justice has been served”.

Manning was convicted of espionage, theft, and other charges in July 2013 after leaking 750,000 sensitive documents, including USA military battlefield reports and diplomatic cables, to WikiLeaks.

Republican Senator Tom Cotton said: “We ought not treat a traitor like a martyr”.

Manning, 28, who was previously known as Bradley, was convicted in 2013.

Obama on Wednesday said that Assange’s pledge to submit to extradition was not taken into consideration in the decision to commute most of Manning’s sentence.

Appearing one last time in front of the White House seal, Obama said he was “significantly worried” that the growth of Jewish settlements in Palestinian territories would “increasingly make a two-state solution impossible”. But in the U.S., Assange could face other challenges, like potential espionage charges for aiding a variety of U.S. government whistleblowers over the past decade. Assange has been at Ecuador’s London embassy since 2012 to avoid extradition for an investigation into rape allegations dating back to 2010.