Of all the parting shots that Obama has tossed out, this one really throws me for a loop. He is commuting the sentence of Bradley Manning, the guy who leaked our intelligence secrets to Wikileaks, and then decided to become Chelsea Manning in prison.
From the New York Post:
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 on May 17 of this year, rather than in 2045.
Incredible.
So why would he commute the sentence of the Wikileaks’ co-conspirator after blaming them for Hillary’s loss and calling them a yuge threat to our security?!?!?
People are pointing to this to explain it:
If Obama grants Manning clemency Assange will agree to US extradition despite clear unconstitutionality of DoJ case https://t.co/MZU30SlfGK
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) January 12, 2017
But will they live up to their word? This is blowing my little brown mind right now.