Wikileaks Source Chelsea Manning Released From Prison
Chelsea Manning was released from prison Wednesday morning, after serving seven years for providing classified government documents to Wikileaks. Manning, a transgender soldier, left Fort Leavenworth military prison in Kansas on Wednesday morning, the BBC reported, citing a spokesperson for the U.S. Army. Manning, who served as an intelligence analyst in Iraq, was arrested in 2010 and convicted in 2013 of theft, computer fraud and violating the Espionage Act, according to the Associated Press. Former President Barack Obama commuted her 35-year sentence before he left office in January. "It has been my view that given she went to trial, that due process was carried out, that she took responsibility for her crime, that the sentence that she received was very disproportionate relative to what other leakers had received, and that she had served a significant amount of time, that it made sense to commute and not pardon her sentence," Obama said at the time. Lawyers for Manning, who transitioned while she was in prison, have said she was subjected to violence during her sentence and said she twice attempted suicide. "For the first time, I can see a future for myself as Chelsea," Manning said in a statement last week. "I can imagine surviving and living as the person who I am and can finally be in the outside world. Freedom used to be something that I dreamed of but never allowed myself to fully imagine."