sentenced manning, then known as bradley manning, to a record 35 years for providing hundreds of thousands of government documents to wikileaks. details on all of that from our justice correspondent pamela brown. reporter: tonight in a shocking move president obama is allowing chelsea manning, the army private convicted of stealing and leaking hundreds of thousands of documents and videos, to be a free woman in may. for the president especially the president who s made so much recently about the danger that wikileaks has posed to our national security, to commute private manning s sentence is disappointing. reporter: in 2009, then known as bradley manning, the 22-year-old stole hundreds of thousands of classified and sensitive military files as an army intelligence analyst. manning then gave them to the website wikileaks, which published them, causing a mass ive ripple effect in the united states and around the world and putting wikileaks on the map for future leakers such as edw
then everybody said it was washington greasing the skids, the lawyers involved, connections to the white house and off we went. you look at the criticism. these people aren t fans of president obama to begin with, john mccain, tom cotton, conservative hawkish senator, but bob menendez saying what kind of signal does this send to whistle-blowers, leakers, and in the middle of the environment we re in right now where we have a senate intelligence committee investigation of the russian hacking. as i said, when these happen at the end of the administration, and a long list, usually one leaves you scratching your head. gloria, do you buy the distinction between chelsea manning and snowden? they re trying to major league a distinction. i don t buy it. they re saying that and i talked to somebody familiar with the white house thinking on this saying this doesn t set a precedent because the distinction between the two of them is so material here that they have nothing in common. in fact,
national security, to commute private manning s sentence is disappointing. reporter: in 2007, then known as bradley manning, the 22-year-old stole hundreds of thousands of classified and sensitive military files as an army intelligence analyst. manning then gave them to the website wikileaks, which published them, causing a massive verbmass ive ripple effect in the united states and around the world and putting wikileaks on the map for future leakers such as edward snowden. manning s disclosures included videos of usair strikes in baghdad that launched worldwide discussions about their morality. the stolen files included embarrassing diplomatic cables. manning confided in an online social security about the disclosures who then alerted authorities. manning was arrested in 2010 for leaking classified information. during the court-martial trial, prosecutors argued manning was a traitor to the united states. but the defense said manning was a naive whistle-blower who wanted to shed ligh