Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

Re:Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence by wbl on Tuesday January 17, 2017 @04:52PM (#13421682)

Or it's Obama recognizing that someone with mental health issues the military is ill-equipped to address who has been in custody for seven years has been punished enough. Lawfare is not a bastion of liberalism, but has suggested enough is enough. Let's save the life sentences for the Walkers.

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Re:Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence by MrZongle2 on Tuesday January 17, 2017 @04:57PM (#13421751)

"Or it's Obama recognizing that someone with mental health issues the military is ill-equipped to address who has been in custody for seven years has been punished enough."

Playing Devil's Advocate: if this is the case, why did it take until the last week of his tenure as President for him to do this?

No, this smells of "legacy". Obama could have done this years ago.

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Re:Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence by dragonwriter on Tuesday January 17, 2017 @05:16PM (#13421971)

> Playing Devil's Advocate: if this is the case, why did it take until the last week of his tenure as President for him to do this?

Because the petition on which action was taken was filed by Manning in November, and the review that goes into making the determination takes nonzero staff and Presidential time, and wasn't the sole thing the White House was doing.

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Re:Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence by grzm on Tuesday January 17, 2017 @04:59PM (#13421785)

It's not atypical for a president to wait until the end of their term to issue pardons and commutations, for legacy, or any other consideration.

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Re:Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence by MrZongle2 on Tuesday January 17, 2017 @05:07PM (#13421870)

That's true.

However, if the supposed motivation is because somebody is suffering...why wait another day, another week, another month, another year?

If this took place before the election, you could call it a principled decision.

If this took place immediately after the election, you could call it a cautious-but-nevertheless-sound decision that might have otherwise been passed on to a (presumably friendly) successor.

Instead, this has taken place three days before he leaves office.

Manning hasn't gone anywhere in seven years. This was not based on a long bout of soul-searching or a sudden new development.

This was a move to either bolster Obama's legacy, or grease the wheels for a post-Presidential opportunity.

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Re:Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence by grzm on Tuesday January 17, 2017 @05:13PM (#13421934)

I'm not privy to the internal motivations of the President (or anyone else for that matter), though I can think of at least one reason besides the two that you've listed: doing so earlier would have made the issue that much more of a political football, principles aside (which is one reason why pardons and commutations are left for the end). I fight against being cynical as a rule. I'm not going to go out of my way to argue that this decision was made purely on principle. That said, it doesn't need to be purely craven posturing either.

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