President Obama Commutes Chelsea Manning's 35-Year Sentence

As one of his final official acts, President Barack Obama commuted the remaining prison sentence for Chelsea Manning, the army intelligence analyst disclosed nearly three-quarters of a million classified or unclassified but senstive military and diplomatic documents via WikiLeaks. Manning was convicted by court-marital in July 2013 of violations of the Espionage Act and other offenses and sentenced to 35 years in prison -- by far the largest sentence ever for such a conviction.

In a joint statement, two lawyers who have been representing Ms. Manning’s appeal of her conviction and sentence, and who filed the commutation application, praised the decision. “Ms. Manning is the longest serving whistleblower in the history of the United States,” they said. “Her 35-year sentence for disclosing information that served the public interest and never caused harm to the United States was always excessive, and we’re delighted that justice is being served in the form of this commutation.”

Manning was convicted as Bradley Manning and came out as a trans woman after her 2013 conviction.