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Obama to Free Chelsea Manning
For the past month, Democrats have screamed about the danger of WikiLeaks and Russian hackers. But when it comes to a guy who damaged US military and intelligence assets instead of the DNC, Obama has decided even massive leaks are unimportant. From the New York Times:
President Obama on Tuesday largely commuted the remaining prison sentence of Chelsea Manning, the army intelligence analyst convicted of an enormous 2010 leak that revealed American military and diplomatic activities across the world, disrupted the administration, and made WikiLeaks, the recipient of those disclosures, famous.
The decision by Mr. Obama rescued Ms. Manning, who twice tried to commit suicide last year, from an uncertain future as a transgender woman incarcerated at the male 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.
Now, under the terms of Mr. Obama’s commutation announced by the White House on Tuesday, Ms. Manning is set to be freed in five months, on May 17 of this year, rather than in 2045.
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.
Here’s a reminder of Manning’s crimes:
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.
Perhaps if Mr. Putin began identifying as a woman, Obama would overlook his actions in the 2016 election.
Published in Law, Military
If there’s a better example of extreme hypocrisy, I haven’t seen it.
He/Her lucky star just came in – by the Grace of God. A heinous crime, but for whatever reason, Chelsea Manning, held in the men’s facility at Leavenworth just got the break of a lifetime. They said no one was harmed by her actions, but we know differently. You have to live with it – and you’ll answer for your actions either here in this lifetime, or the next.
Who is this guy?
So does the Obama Admin realize that Chelsea Manning is the same person as Bradley Manning? Getting out of prison by pretending to be a woman (or self identifying as a woman rather to use the current pop language) can get one out of prison. This is like something out of a Mel Brooks movie.
I think you all you people are just being haters here. Do you not realize the historical importance of this moment? Obama is the first president to give a transexual pardon. It is a milestone in LGBTQ rights.
I recognize the name, but I just did not know what he looked like.
I hope one of the first things that Trump does is release Jonathan to Israel. An American, never able to face his accuser, never had a trial, and held in prison. A travesty of justice.
Even then, he’s still a he. Just a mutilated one.
I’ve been expecting a pardon for Mumia Abu-Jamal from Emperor Barry since November 4, 2008.
Are you kidding? Bradleyetta will be living off the largesse of the Useful Idiot Left – which has to have plenty of petty cash to throw around for sex change operations, tents for the mentally ill to camp in playgrounds, and all other sorts of useless things to “improve society” – so it will never have to put in another honest day’s work in its life. It will just go around on speaking tours about how awful America is to Muslims and ladymen and Muslim ladymen and make more money than probably everyone in posting in this thread will combined before it reaches its thirtieth birthday…
In related news, Julian Assange identifies as a woman.
I’m genuinely curious of our Ricochetti who have typically seemed never to assign the most nefarious intentions and beliefs to this traitorous scum of a president, who have continually assigned the clear anti-American actions to ‘Alt-Right’/John Bircher membership – what are you feeling now? Still think ‘we share the same goals, we just disagree on policy’? Still think it ‘unseemly’ and below the dignity of the office for Trump to prosecute Hillary? Holder? Lynch? Obama?
Drew,
You just spoke truth to power. Sexual schizophrenia isn’t a cause it’s a mental disease.
Regards,
Jim
Thank G-d we have The New York Times to contextualize the narrative. When Obama pardons Mumia, the NYT will inform us that the cop he murdered was only a very short one.
She has to get a better picture – maybe she can contact Caitlin when she gets out for some style tips…..on another note, was this just a ploy by Obama because Assange said he would agree to extradition if Manning was released? And since Obama, Hillary and Democrats think WikiLeaks skewed the election for them, although in reality it played only a very small part, it is payback to Assange to keep his word and face justice?
I don’t see any winners other than Manning in this commutation. What constituency is Obama playing to with this action?
I never got the sense that the LBGT community found the Manning weirdness to be some political rallying point.
The fact of the matter is the Left will still love Obama no matter what he does. Obama could stand before a throng of Lefties and defecate and the the crowd would roar with approval.
Andrew McCarthy had a good explanation in that they can never say who, when and where someone was hurt because it would require exposing more intelligence, and after a leak damage control becomes the mission. Any intelligence leak is assumed to be worse case scenerio by intelligence, and the damage control efforts increase exponentially . Obama said concerning Hillary that she didn’t mean to damage anyone, and that logic is typical of left liberal logic. It isn’t the result, but the intent. I expect the commutation/pardon game is a part of the job Obama really enjoys. I can’t predict, but it will be interesting to see if he pardons Hillary at the last moment, or lets her twist and see if DJT will either pardon or prosecute. If I were Obama, I’d dump that problem to Trump, where he would be damned if he did, and damned if he didn’t either way.
Obama isn’t playing to any constituency. He pardoned a traitor for the simple reason that he, Obama, hates his own country.
Conservatives have been dancing around this fact for 8 years. It wouldn’t be civil to state the obvious, don’tcha know. But it is true, and we have all known it.
So I guess Wikileaks is bad if it exposes that John Podesta is a low life jerk, but it is OK if it threatens the lives of our troops and allies. Thanks for the clarification Mr. President, also don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
I don’t understand this sentiment. I would pay good money to watch the door slam him in the a** on his way out.
Obama’s not above doing things for spite. Or perhaps the logic is, “This will tick off all the right people, so it must be a good thing.” One need look no further than the UN resolution on Israel for an example.
Commuting the sentence of Bradley Manning was to be expected from Obama. What is more egregious is his commuting the sentence of admitted enemy of the USA, FALN leader Oscar López Rivera. This is a disgrace. But it fits with the pattern of Obama freeing terrorists.
Scott Johnson at PowerLine has details and links to this informative article by Matthew Hennessey.
Agree. Also reprehensible is the release of thousands of drug offenders, on the basis that “drugs are not a violent offense.” What he either doesn’t realize or is ignoring is that so many of those crimes did inv0lve violence, even deaths, but were plea-bargained down for one reason or another.
The final synopsis of the qualities of a president becomes fully and unmistakably revealed through the types of persons he extends clemency and pardons immediately prior to his departure, when protest or discussion becomes moot.
Yes this is true but as they say he’ll have skin in the game.
Julian Assange just announced that he will now accept extradition to the United States, just as he promised he would if Manning’s sentence was commuted.
That’s interesting. I don’t know how well a prosecution would go here. Is there a precident for prosecuting a foreigner for publishing classified information outside of the USA? Maybe they could connect him to stealing it.
Once he’s here he could be sent to Sweden, though.