WASHINGTON, Jan 17 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Tuesday commuted the prison sentence of Chelsea Manning, the former U.S. military intelligence analyst who is serving 35 years in prison for passing classified files to WikiLeaks, the White House said.

Manning, formerly known as U.S. Army Private First Class Bradley Manning, was born male but revealed after being convicted of espionage that she identifies as a woman.

She accepted responsibility for leaking the material, has said she was confronting gender dysphoria at the time of the leaks while deployed in Iraq. (Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Sandra Maler)