Files' leaker sees term commuted; Chelsea Manning, retired general among Obama’s 273 clemencies

Army Pfc. Bradley Manning is escorted on Aug. 20, 2013, to a security vehicle outside a courthouse at Fort Meade, Md., after a hearing in his court-martial in this file photo. Manning, a transgender woman now known as Chelsea, had her sentence commuted Tuesday by President Barack Obama and will leave prison on May 17.
Army Pfc. Bradley Manning is escorted on Aug. 20, 2013, to a security vehicle outside a courthouse at Fort Meade, Md., after a hearing in his court-martial in this file photo. Manning, a transgender woman now known as Chelsea, had her sentence commuted Tuesday by President Barack Obama and will leave prison on May 17.

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama commuted the prison sentence of Chelsea Manning on Tuesday, allowing the convicted Army leaker to go free nearly three decades early as part of a move to offer clemency to hundreds of people in the final days of his administration.

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In this undated file photo provided by the U.S. Army, Pfc. Chelsea Manning poses for a photo wearing a wig and lipstick.

Manning, 29, who will leave prison May 17, was one of 209 inmates whose sentences Obama was shortening, a list that includes Puerto Rican nationalist Oscar Lopez Rivera. Obama also pardoned 64 people, including retired Marine Gen. James Cartwright, who pleaded guilty to making false statements during an investigation into disclosure of classified information.

"These 273 individuals learned that our nation is a forgiving nation," said White House counsel Neil Eggleston, "where hard work and a commitment to rehabilitation can lead to a second chance, and where wrongs from the past will not deprive an individual of the opportunity to move forward."

Manning has been serving a 35-year sentence for leaking hundreds of thousands of classified government and military documents to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. She asked Obama in November to commute her sentence to time served.

Manning has spent more than six years behind bars. She was convicted in military court in 2013 of six violations of the Espionage Act and 14 other offenses for leaking more than 700,000 documents and battlefield video to WikiLeaks.

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Manning, who was known as Bradley Manning at the time of her 2010 arrest, is being held at the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. Manning was an intelligence analyst in Iraq and has admitted to leaking the documents, but has said it was done to raise public awareness about the effects of war on civilians.

She copied military logs from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, which, among other things, exposed abuses of detainees by Iraqi military officers working with U.S. forces and showed that civilian deaths in the Iraq war were likely much higher than official estimates.

She attempted suicide twice last year, according to her lawyers, citing her treatment at Leavenworth.

Chase Strangio, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney representing Manning, said the president's action "could quite literally save Chelsea's life."

"We are all better off knowing that Chelsea Manning will walk out of prison a free woman, dedicated to making the world a better place and fighting for justice for so many," Strangio said in a statement.

House Speaker Paul Ryan called the move "just outrageous," and added, "Chelsea Manning's treachery put American lives at risk and exposed some of our nation's most sensitive secrets."

The U.S. Army declined to comment.

The commutation also relieved the Defense Department of the responsibility of her incarceration as she pushes for treatment for her gender dysphoria -- including sex reassignment surgery -- that the military has no experience providing.

Cartwright, the former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, received a pardon, the White House said. He pleaded guilty in October to making false statements during an investigation into a leak of classified information about a covert cyberattack on Iran's nuclear facilities. Prosecutors said Cartwright falsely told investigators that he did not provide information contained in a news article and in a book by New York Times journalist David Sanger, and said he also misled prosecutors about classified information shared with another journalist, Daniel Klaidman.

The Justice Department sought a sentence of two years, saying employees of the U.S. government are entrusted each day with sensitive classified information.

Puerto Ricans had long demanded the release of Lopez, who was sentenced to 55 years in prison for his role in a violent struggle for independence for the U.S. island territory. Lopez had belonged to the ultranationalist Armed Forces of National Liberation, which has claimed responsibility for more than 100 bombings at public and commercial buildings in U.S. cities during the 1970s and 1980s.

The 74-year-old's term now will expire in May. The White House noted that absent a commutation, Lopez likely would have died in prison.

Commutations reduce sentences being served but don't erase convictions. Pardons generally restore civil rights, such as voting, often after a sentence has been served.

Most of the other people receiving commutations were serving sentences for nonviolent drug offenses.

Information for this article was contributed by Josh Lederman, Darlene Superville, Vivian Salama, John Hanna, Eric Tucker and Danica Cota of The Associated Press; by Ellen Nakashima and Sari Horwitz of The Washington Post; and by Charlie Savage of The New York Times.

A Section on 01/18/2017

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