Chelsea Manning to Be Released Early as Obama Commutes …

Speaker Paul D. Ryan called it outrageous. President Obama now leaves in place a dangerous precedent that those who compromise our national security wont be held accountable for their crimes, he said in a statement.

But in a joint statement, Nancy Hollander and Vince Ward two lawyers who have been representing Ms. Manning in appealing her conviction and sentence, and who filed the commutation application praised the decision.

Ms. Manning is the longest-serving whistle-blower 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 were delighted that justice is being served in the form of this commutation.

In recent days, the White House had signaled that Mr. Obama was seriously considering granting Ms. Mannings commutation application, in contrast to a pardon application submitted on behalf of the other large-scale leaker of the era, Edward J. Snowden, the former intelligence contractor who disclosed archives of top-secret surveillance files and is living as a fugitive in Russia.

Asked about the two clemency applications on Friday, the White House spokesman, Josh Earnest, discussed the pretty stark difference between Ms. Mannings case for mercy and Mr. Snowdens. While their offenses were similar, he said, there were some important differences.

Chelsea Manning is somebody who went through the military criminal justice process, was exposed to due process, was found guilty, was sentenced for her crimes, and she acknowledged wrongdoing, he said. Mr. Snowden fled into the arms of an adversary and has sought refuge in a country that most recently made a concerted effort to undermine confidence in our democracy.

Mr. Earnest also noted that while the documents Ms. Manning provided to WikiLeaks were damaging to national security, the ones Mr. Snowden disclosed were far more serious and far more dangerous. (None of the documents Ms. Manning disclosed were classified above the merely secret level.)

Ms. Manning was still known as Bradley Manning when she deployed with her unit to Iraq in late 2009. There, she worked as a low-level intelligence analyst helping her unit assess insurgent activity in the area it was patrolling, a role that gave her access to a classified computer network.

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Chelsea Manning to Be Released Early as Obama Commutes ...