Obama Commutes Sentence of Chelsea (Bradley) Manning
Wikileaks not so evil after all
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In the final days of his presidency, President Obama commuted most of the remaining sentence for intelligence leaker Bradley (Chelsea) Manning.
Manning, who has served seven years of a thirty-five-year sentence, will be released by May 17 of this year.
White House Press Secretary Joshua Earnest was asked why Manning’s sentence was commuted while fellow intel leaker, Edward Snowden’s, application for clemency has not yet been accepted:
Asked about the two clemency applications on Friday, the White House spokesman, Joshua Earnest, discussed the “pretty stark difference” between Ms. Manning’s case for mercy with Mr. Snowden’s. While their offenses were similar, he said, there were “some important differences.”
“Chelsea Manning is somebody who went through the military criminal justice process, was exposed to due process, was found guilty, was sentenced for her crimes, and she acknowledged wrongdoing,” he said. “Mr. Snowden fled into the arms of an adversary, and has sought refuge in a country that most recently made a concerted effort to undermine confidence in our democracy.”
He also noted that while the documents Ms. Manning provided to WikiLeaks were “damaging to national security,” the ones Mr. Snowden disclosed were “far more serious and far more dangerous.” (None of the documents Ms. Manning disclosed were classified above the merely “secret” level.)
Ms. Manning was still known as Bradley Manning when she deployed with her unit to Iraq in late 2009. There, she worked as a low-level intelligence analyst helping her unit assess insurgent activity in the area it was patrolling, a role that gave her access to a classified computer network.
She copied hundreds of thousands of military incident logs from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, which, among other things, exposed abuses of detainees by Iraqi military officers working with American forces and showed that civilian deaths in the Iraq war were likely much higher than official estimates.
The files she copied also included about 250,000 diplomatic cables from American embassies around the world showing sensitive deals and conversations, dossiers detailing intelligence assessments of Guantánamo detainees held without trial, and a video of an American helicopter attack in Baghdad in two Reuters journalists were killed, among others.
She decided to make all these files public, as she wrote at the time, in the hope that they would incite “worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms.” WikiLeaks’ disclosed them — working with traditional news organizations including The New York Times — bringing notoriety to the group and its founder, Julian Assange.
As the NYT points out, commuting Manning’s sentence excused the DOD from dealing with Manning’s gender confusion issues:
The commutation also relieved the Department of Defense of the difficult responsibility of her incarceration as she pushes for treatment for her gender dysphoria — including sex reassignment surgery — that the military has no experience providing.
Manning has attemped suicided twice since being imprisoned in Fort Leavenworth.
President Obama’s decision to commute the sentence of an individual who leaked confidential information to Wikileaks is in direct conflict with Democratic rhetoric lambasting Wikileaks for publishing illegally obtained emails from the DNC and Hillary adviser, John Podesta.
Wikileaks is only evil when it’s politically expedient. At least if you’re a Democrat.
Follow Kemberlee on Twitter @kemberleekaye
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Comments
As well they should. Now the officer that did the background investigation for the security clearance should fill in the rest of this pervert’s time behind bars.
Either do it right, or pay the ballerina.
Barracula also commuted the sentence of this nice old man…
http://twitchy.com/sd-3133/2017/01/17/why-stop-at-manning-obama-also-commutes-sentence-of-unrepentant-terrorist/
Maybe he should have been sentenced to sex reassignment, too, before being released?
Barracula will give us the finger again before he leaves office.
What’s the spread on Hellary? (Or was that just too brutal a visual…???)
Steal classified documents and give them to wikileaks: Commute his sentence!
Transmit classified information on a private unsecure server: No big deal!
Hack the DNC and expose the corruption of the democratic party: Impose sanctions on Russia!
Friday cannot come soon enough!
But he still won’t let Jonathan Pollard go to Israel, even though Pollard served out every last day, hour and minute of his sentence.
If Pollard had converted to Islam and asked for gender reassignment….early release. Having The One commute the sentence will be the highlight of Chelsea’s .. or whoever’s life. It will be downhill from here anyway.
If he’d served out his whole sentence he’d be free to go wherever he liked, and also to talk to whomever he liked. But he didn’t; his sentence was life and he’s merely out on parole, which is why the government is able to restrict his travel and communication.
One of the last of Obama’s contemptuous farts in the face of the American electorate.
What a grandstanding, unabashed hypocrite Obama is — acting outraged over allegations of Russian hacking, promising severe retribution in response to said allegations, and, then, weeks later, giving an undeserved commutation to perhaps the most prominent dispenser of state secrets not named Hillary Clinton.
No inconsistency, here!
I’m betting Chelsea becomes Bradley again once free.
Brandley’s alt-ego, Chelsea, sentence has been commuted. Has Bradley’s? Could Bradley still be required to serve his sentence despite Obama granting clemency for his alt-ego? If Bradley is convicted of treason, and sentenced to an abortion by scalpel, perhaps a pair of scissors, would Chelsea be allowed to forego Planning?
One traitor protecting another.
Two truths that will finally surface: Obama is indeed a traitor, as well as a homosexual. The third truth of his ‘wife’ being a man just might be true as well.
He is not a traitor, at least as the constitution defines it. He is motivated simply by hatred for the US, not by adherence to any of their enemies. The only US enemy he can even be said to like is Cuba.
Iran, Milhouse. Never forget Iran.
He has certainly not adhered to Iran. The only reason he has helped them was not because he loves Iran but because he hates America.
Why would he love Iran? There is nothing about him that would make him at all sympathetic to a Shiite regime. Nor is he surrounded by Shiites or Iran sympathizers. In fact helping Iran is probably the best proof that he is not a Moslem, since if he were one he’d certainly be Sunni, and regard the Iranian Mullahs as heretics and rebels against Allah’s ordained order. But he doesn’t care about any of that; if you’re against America you’re OK with him.
Does this set any precedent? Has an admitted spy/stealer of classified information ever had his/her sentence commuted in the past?
Does this invite others to do the same “because it’s the right thing to do” as they too can hope for a commuted sentence or pardon from on high?
Absolutely disgusting that Obama would commute his sentence during his last week in office. Also absolutely disgusting that people refer to him as “her”.
Question for the legal beagles on here; I read somewhere that he is to be released in May. Could President Trump reverse that commutation as he is still in prison once Trump takes office?
No, he cannot. as soon as 0bama signed the commutation, Manning’s sentence was shortened, and now expires in May; no president can extend someone’s sentence.
Did he commit more acts than his original conviction was based on. Is there any reason he could not be charged now with crimes unrelated to the sentence which was commuted? Any lawyers out there want to weigh in? What about the politics?
That goes double for Oscar Lopez-Rivera too.
Anything Lopez-Rivera did would probably be statuted out by now. And I think they charged Manning with everything they could.