The New York Times reports that President Obama has commuted the “bulk” of her sentence. She will be released on May 17:
The decision by Mr. Obama rescued Ms. Manning, who twice tried to commit suicide last year, from an uncertain future as a transgender woman incarcerated at the male military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. She has been jailed for nearly seven years, and her 35-year sentence was by far the longest punishment ever imposed in the United States for a leak conviction.
NBC had previously reported that Manning was on Obama’s clemency shortlist. There is a strong humanitarian case for her release: She’s suffered a number of human rights abuses during her time in Leavenworth Prison. The ACLU sued the military on Manning’s behalf in 2014 over its refusal to grant her access to treatment for gender dysphoria; officials only granted permission for her to receive gender-confirmation surgery last September. She attempted suicide twice last year, only to be sentenced to solitary confinement despite her fragile state. And her situation was set to worsen under Trump. As Megan Carpentier reported for The New Republic last November, Trump’s hostility to the presence of LGBT people in the military posed an imminent threat to Manning’s health and safety.
Manning is the reason we know how Reuters journalist Namir Noor-Eldeen and his driver, Saeed Chmagh, really died. Thanks to her, we know that two U.S. Army Apache helicopter crews gunned down both men in a crowd of Iraqis—and laughed about it afterwards.
Manning’s commutation should have happened years ago, but Obama has likely saved her life by securing her release now. Edward Snowden probably won’t be as lucky, but this is the move he implored Obama to make last week:
Mr. President, if you grant only one act of clemency as you exit the White House, please: free Chelsea Manning. You alone can save her life.
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) January 11, 2017