Obama on Chastising Wikileaks But Commuting Manning: ‘I Don’t See a Contradiction’

‘First of all, I haven’t commented on Wikileaks generally’

"So, with respect to Wikileaks, I don’t see a contradiction. First of all, I haven’t commented on Wikileaks generally. The conclusions of the intelligence community with respect to the Russian hacking were not conclusive as to whether Wikileaks was willing or not in being the conduit through which we heard about the DNC, e-mails that were leaked. 

I don’t pay a lot of attention to Mr. Assange’s tweets. That wasn’t a consideration in this instance. And I refer you to the Justice Department for any criminal investigations, indictments, extradition issues that may come up with him. What I can say broadly, is that in this new cyber age, we’re going to have to make sure that we continually work to find the right balance of accountability and openness and transparency that is the hallmark of our democracy and recognize that there are adversaries and bad actors out there who want to use that same openness in ways that hurt us." 

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