President Barack Obama said Wednesday that he commuted Chelsea Manning's sentence because the punishment did not fit the crime.

Manning, an army intelligence analyst who shared classified documents with Wikileaks, was sent prison for 35 years. Obama said that was too long, compared to other leakers.

'I feel very comfortable that justice has been served and that a message has still been sent,' the president said.

Obama ordered that Chelsea, who went by the name Bradley at the time of the crime, be released on May 17, 2017, cutting her jail time down to more than six years.

He said today that his decision had nothing to do with pleas from Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who offered extradition in exchange for Manning's release.

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President Barack Obama said Wednesday that he commuted Chelsea Manning's sentence because the punishment did not fit the crime

Manning, who went by the name Bradley at the time, was sentenced to 35 years in prison for her crimes. She'll get out in May, thanks to Obama

President-elect Donald Trump has not commented on Manning's release.

Senior aides to the incoming president called the commutation 'partisan politics at its worst' and said he was 'troubled' by the eleventh-hour commutation.

Republican Senator Tom Cotton scathingly accused Obama of treating a 'traitor like a martyr.'

Obama's outgoing Defense Secretary, along with other Army leaders, recommended that the president not commute Manning's sentence, according to reporting from Fox News.

Obama said Wednesday at a news conference that Manning had 'served a tough prison sentence.'

'So the notion that the average person who was thinking about disclosing vital classified information would think that it goes unpunished, I don't think would get that impression from the sentence that Chelsea Manning has served.'

Manning had applied for leniency through the Department of Justice. A favorable outcome seemed probable, given Manning's multiple suicide attempts and the Obama administration's LGBT policies.

Assange had challenged Obama to grant Manning clemency in a cryptic message on Twitter that mentioned a Department of Justice case and an offer of his own extradition.

'If Obama grants Manning clemency Assange will agree to US extradition despite clear unconstitutionality of DoJ case,' a Wikileaks tweet said.

Obama denied today that Assange's offer was a factor in his decision.

'I don't pay a lot of attention to Mr. Assange's tweets, so that wasn't a consideration in this instance,' he said at his final news conference as president. 'And I'd refer you to the Justice Department for any criminal investigations, indictments, extradition issues that may come up with him.'

A White House official could not say on a Tuesday evening call detailing the Obama commutations what case or charges Wikileaks was referring to in the tweet, either.

The senior official said the president's decision 'was not influenced in any way' by Assange, who lives in the Embassy of Ecuador in London, or Wikileaks.

Manning's sentence is being commuted to time served 'to ensure that the sentence that she served is comparable to the sentences that were handed down to individuals who committed comparable crimes,' the White House official said.

Commenting on the decision Wednesday, Obama said, 'I looked at the particulars of this case the same way I had the other commutations and pardons that I've done, and I felt that in light of all the circumstances, that commuting her sentence was entirely appropriate.'

Wikileaks called Manning's forthcoming release a 'victory' in a statement Tuesday afternoon that didn't mention Assange's promise.

'Thank you to everyone who campaigned for Chelsea Manning's clemency. Your courage & determination made the impossible possible,' Assange said via the organization's Twitter.

Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who fled the country after he stole a tranche of classified documents and exposed government secrets, did not apply for a pardon, the White House said, nor did he proactively receive one

He thanked Obama in a tweet on Tuesday afternoon for sparing Manning from a life in prison

Obama did not mention, and was not asked about, a potential pardon for another leaker, Edward Snowden, at his Wednesday news conference.

Snowden, the former NSA contractor who fled the country after he stole a tranche of classified documents and exposed government secrets, neither applied for a pardon, the White House had said, nor did he proactively receive one in Tuesday's clemency declarations.

The president plans to give another round of criminals early release before his final day in office this Friday, the White House says. But they were cast as low-level drug offenders whose sentences would have been shorter if they were sent to jail now.

Asked about Snowden at his last press briefing on Tuesday, before the commutation notice went out, Obama's spokesman said, 'I cant rule anything in or out.' He noted then that Snowden had not filed paperwork to seek clemency from the administration, however, suggesting that precluded him from receiving pardon.

Snowden had lobbied the White House to commute Manning's sentence, as well.

He thanked Obama in a tweet on Tuesday afternoon for sparing Manning from a life in prison.

'In five more months, you will be free. Thank you for what you did for everyone, Chelsea. Stay strong a while longer!' he said in another tweet alongside a 2010 photo of Manning dressed as a woman.

The White House laid the groundwork for Manning to get a commutation last week, differentiating the case from that of Snowden.

Unlike Snowden, Manning, arrested in 2010, 'acknowledged wrongdoing,' the White House said, and appeared in a military court.

Snowden has taken refuge in Vladimir Putin's Russia, 'a country that most recently made a concerted effort to undermine confidence in our democracy,' Obama's spokesman said, and refuses to return to the U.S. face prosecution in the United States.

The Manning and Snowden cases have similarities, press secretary Josh Earnest said, but they are quite different in scale and scope.

Manning was convicted in 2013 of illegally sharing 700,000 State Department and military documents. Snowden stole a million more - a reported 1.7 million secret documents.

'Obviously, as Chelsea Manning has acknowledged, and as we have said many times, that the release of the information that she provided to WikiLeaks was damaging to national security,' Earnest said. 'But the disclosures by Edward Snowden were far more serious and far more dangerous.'

Republican Senator and Afghanistan veteran Tom Cotton said he was baffled by Obama's decision in a quick reaction to Manning's planned release.

'When I was leading soldiers in Afghanistan, Private Manning was undermining us by leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks,' Cotton said.

'I don’t understand why the president would feel special compassion for someone who endangered the lives of our troops, diplomats, intelligence officers, and allies. We ought not treat a traitor like a martyr.'

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange had challenged Obama to grant Manning clemency in exchange for extradition to the United States. It's unclear what charges are being brought against him and in what case

Teeing up Obama's comments today, the White House said on its call with reporters that 'the president continues to believe that her actions were criminal, and were not good for the country. They harmed our national security.'

But he believes that her six years in prison are' sufficient,' for several reasons, including the remorse she has shown for her actions, an official said.

Manning's military record states she was suffering from gender identity disorder when she stole and released classified documents, and a court ordered the army in September to pay for her gender reassignment surgery.

The transgender soldier's attorneys have said that she was placed in solitary confinement as punishment for a July suicide attempt and other abuses in prison contributed to her mental state and a second attempt on her life this fall.

Steve Scalise, House Republicans' top vote counter said in a statement after the White House call that the Manning commutation 'is an insult to the rule of law and is an added stain on his legacy of abused executive action.'

The anti-secrecy group called Manning's forthcoming release a 'victory' in a statement Tuesday afternoon that didn't mention Assange's promise

The White House laid the groundwork for her to get a commutation last week, differentiating the case from that of Snowden, who had lobbied the White House to commute Manning's sentence, as well

In commuting 209 sentences, in addition to the 64 pardons, on Tuesday Obama broke a White House record, granting more second chances than any other president in history.

Obama has handed out a sum total of 1,385 commutations during his time in office - more than the last 12 presidents combined, the White House said Tuesday, and he plans to hand out more on Friday, leaving the door open for a Snowden pardon, though it remains highly unlikely.

The outgoing president told German publication Der Spiegel last month that he 'can't' pardon Snowden, who's wanted for three felony charges tied to his 2013 exposure of the NSA's bulk data program, because he hasn't presented his case in court.

'I think that Mr. Snowden raised some legitimate concerns,' Obama stated. 'How he did it was something that did not follow the procedures and practices of our intelligence community.

Obama, a Harvard-educated lawyer who taught constitutional law, said, 'If everybody took the approach that I make my own decisions about these issues, then it would be very hard to have an organized government or any kind of national security system.'



