Obama commutes sentence of Chelsea Manning - East Idaho News
National

Obama commutes sentence of Chelsea Manning

  Published at

(CNN) — President Barack Obama on Tuesday commuted the sentence of Chelsea Manning and pardoned James Cartwright. Manning was convicted of stealing and disseminating 750,000 pages of documents and videos to WikiLeaks. Cartwright, the former vice chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, pleaded guilty in October to a single charge of making false statements to federal investigators in 2012 when he was questioned about leaking top secret information on US efforts to cripple Iran’s nuclear program to two journalists.

In addition, he reduced or eliminated the sentences for hundreds more non-violent drug offenders, likely his final acts of clemency while in office. The move brings Obama well beyond his most recent predecessors, who used their commutation powers more sparingly. He’s now reduced sentences for 1,385 individuals, the vast majority of whom are serving time for crimes related to distribution or production of narcotics. He’s pardoned an additional 212 people, a number below that of Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

SUBMIT A CORRECTION