Chelsea Manning to Be Released Early May, Obama Commutes HIS Sentence

Barrack Obama last Tuesday commuted all but four months of the remaining prison sentence of Mr Chelsea Manning. Manning is the Army intelligence analyst who is convicted in 2010 for the leak of sensitive information revealing US military and diplomatic activities across the world. His actions 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 7 years, and her 35-year sentence was by far the longest punishment ever imposed in the United States for a leak conviction.

Obama, whose administration has cracked down on leaks of government secrets, told reporters last Wednesday that Manning has already served "a tough prison sentence" over the last seven years. HE will now be released on May 17, instead of in 2045.

"It has been my view that given she went on trial, that due process was carried out, that she took responsibility for her crime, that the sentence that she received was very disproportionate relative to what other leakers had received," Obama said.