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Rubio Condemns President Obama’s Commutation of Private Manning’s Prison Sentence

Jan 17, 2017 | Press Releases

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) issued the following statement today regarding President Obama’s decision to commute the sentence of Private Manning, who in 2013 was sentenced to 35 years in prison for stealing U.S. government secrets and providing them to Wikileaks:

“Private Manning was an Army intelligence analyst who stole a massive cache of highly classified government secrets and purposely leaked them to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.  Private Manning violated an oath as a member of the U.S. military and endangered the lives of fellow servicemembers and individuals in contact with the U.S. government around the world.  Private Manning further aided our enemies by disclosing highly classified sources and methods our intelligence professionals rely on to obtain secrets in defense of our nation. It is shameful that President Obama is siding with lawbreakers and the ACLU against the men and women who work every day to defend our nation and safeguard U.S. government secrets.”