President Obama has commuted all but four months of the
remaining prison sentence of Chelsea Manning, the Army intelligence
analyst convicted of a 2010 leak that revealed American military and
diplomatic activities across the world, disrupted Mr. Obama’s
administration and brought global prominence to WikiLeaks, the recipient
of those disclosures.
The decision by Mr. Obama rescued Ms. Manning, who twice tried to kill herself last year, from an uncertain future as a transgender woman incarcerated at the men’s military prison
at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. She has been jailed for nearly seven years,
and her 35-year sentence was by far the longest punishment ever imposed
in the United States for a leak conviction.
At
the same time that Mr. Obama commuted the sentence of Ms. Manning, a
low-ranking enlisted soldier at the time of her leaks, he also pardoned
Gen. James E. Cartwright, the former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff who pleaded guilty to lying about his conversations with
reporters to F.B.I. agents investigating a leak of classified
information about cyberattacks on Iran’s nuclear program.
The
two acts of clemency were a remarkable final step for a president whose
administration carried out an unprecedented criminal crackdown on leaks
of government secrets. Depending on how they are counted, the Obama
administration has prosecuted either nine or 10 such cases, more than
were charged under all previous presidencies combined.
In addition, Mr. Obama on Tuesday commuted the sentence of Oscar Lopez Rivera, who was part of a Puerto Rican nationalist group
that carried out a string of bombings in the late 1970s and early
1980s; the other members of that group had long since been freed. Mr.
Obama also granted 63 other pardons and 207 other commutations, mostly
for drug offenders.
Under
the terms of the commutation announced by the White House on Tuesday,
Ms. Manning is set to be freed on May 17 of this year rather than in
2045. A senior administration official said the 120-day delay was part
of a standard transition period for commutations to time served, and was
designed to allow for such steps as finding a place for Ms. Manning to
live after her release.
The
commutation also relieved the Defense Department of the difficult
responsibility of Ms. Manning’s incarceration as she pushes for
treatment for her gender dysphoria, including sex reassignment surgery,
that the military has no experience providing.
But
the move was sharply criticized by several prominent Republicans,
including the chairmen of the House and Senate armed services
committees, Representative Mac Thornberry of Texas and Senator John
McCain of Arizona, who called her leaks “espionage” and said they had
put American troops and the country at risk.
Speaker Paul D. Ryan called it “outrageous.”
“President Obama now leaves in place a dangerous precedent that those
who compromise our national security won’t be held accountable for their
crimes,” he said in a statement.
But
in a joint statement, Nancy Hollander and Vince Ward — two lawyers who
have been representing Ms. Manning in appealing her conviction and
sentence, and who filed the commutation application — praised the
decision.
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