Outgoing US President Barack Obama has shortened the prison sentence of over 270 inmates, including Chelsea Manning, the former military intelligence analyst responsible for the biggest breach of classified materials in US history.
In one of his final acts before leaving office, Obama on Tuesday reduced Manning’s sentence from 35 years to seven years, a White House official said.
Obama will grant clemency to 64 more individuals on Thursday, White House counsel Neil Eggleston said.
The 28-year-old transgender whistleblower was born Bradley Manning. She was sentenced in 2014 to 35 years in prison for espionage, by far the longest punishment ever imposed in the United States for a leak conviction.
Manning was working as an intelligence analyst in Baghdad in 2010 when she provided more than 700,000 documents, videos, diplomatic cables and battlefield accounts to anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, the largest leak of classified materials in US history.
Manning…