Obama on Commuting Chelsea Manning: ‘She Has Served a Tough Prison Sentence’

EXCERPT:

OBAMA: "Well, first of all let’s be clear, Chelsea Manning has served a tough prison sentence. So the notion that the average person who was thinking about disclosing vital, classified information would think that it goes unpunished, I don’t think would get that impression from sentence that Chelsea Manning has served. 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 disproportional — 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."