President Obama has commuted the 35-year prison sentence of Chelsea Manning, the army private who leaked military secrets to WikiLeaks.
Her prison sentence has been shortened to expire on May 17, 2017, according to a statement from the White House. This commutation was issued along with 208 others. Obama also pardoned 64 individuals, including retired Gen. James Cartwright, the former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was accused of making false statements to federal investigators.
Manning, a transgender woman, was known as Bradley Manning at the time of her 2010 arrest. She has attempted suicide twice while in prison and has served in solitary confinement. She ended a hunger strike this past fall after the U.S. Army agreed to allow her to get gender-affirming surgery.
Manning is more than six years into a 35-year sentence for leaking more than 700,000 classified military and Department of State documents to WikiLeaks. She has said she disclosed the information out of "a love for my country and a sense of duty to others."
Gen. Cartwright "had been charged with falsely telling FBI investigators that he did not provide classified information for a book written by New York Times reporter David Sanger," according to NPR.