Senate for Chelsea Manning? She says she’s running – CNET

Former soldier Chelsea Manning received Out magazine's Newsmaker of the Year award last year. Now it looks like she'll be running for Senate.

It looks like Chelsea Manning, the former US Army soldier who went to prison for passing classified materials to WikiLeaks, wants to head to Capitol Hill as a senator.

The 30-year-old, transgendered Manning, once known as Bradley, filed a statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission this week, saying she'll be running for the US Senate as a Democrat from Maryland.

Along with Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who caused a global uproar over government surveillance by leaking NSA documents, Manning is perhaps the best-known whistle-blower/leaker of recent years.

The hundreds of thousands of files she handed over to WikiLeaks in 2010 included a graphic video of Iraqis being gunned down during a US helicopter attack in Baghdad. They also included a cache of top secret military documents that came to be known as the Afghan War Diary, and a set of diplomatic cables that led to "Cablegate."

Last year, Manning, who said she leaked the documents to spark a debate about US military and foreign policy, was offered a spot as a visiting fellow at Harvard University. The school caused an outcry, though, after it rescinded the offer following a protest by CIA Director Mike Pompeo. In September, a profile of Manning in Vogue magazine ran alongside a picture of her in a swimsuit, taken by famed photographer Annie Leibovitz.

Manning was released from prison in May, after serving seven years of a 35-year sentence and being granted clemency by then President Barack Obama.

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Senate for Chelsea Manning? She says she's running - CNET