Bradley Chelsea Manning is seeking a presidential pardon for handing U.S state secrets to the WikiLeaks website because it was done 'out of a love for my country'.
According to documents released today, Manning's lawyer, David Coombs, has sent a Petition for Pardon to President Barack Obama. The White House said last month that if Manning requested a presidential pardon she would be considered the same as anyone else.
In the petition he she wrote that she had started questioning the morality of U.S. actions in Iraq and Afghanistan while reading secret military reports. He She said: 'When I chose to disclose classified information, I did so out of a love for my country and sense of duty to others.'
Manning acknowledged he she had broken the law, adding, 'I regret if
| Not if, dear boy. When. Once you understand that, the rest will follow. |
my actions hurt anyone or harmed the United States.'
Manning signed the petition 'Bradley Manning', not Chelsea, as her name has not legally been changed.
Mark Osler, a law professor and founder of a commutation clinic at St. Thomas University in Minneapolis, gave Manning's petition a 'zero per cent' chance of success.
| Brilliant, professor, what was your first clue? |
Osler noted that the President has granted just 39 pardons and one commutation since taking office, while he has denied 1,333. Olser added that it is also very early in Manning's confinement for the White House to seriously consider such a request.
Manning is currently serving a 35-year sentence at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, for her conviction on July 30 on 20 counts of disclosing information while working as an intelligence analyst in Iraq. Since being convicted Manning has said she wants to live as a woman and two Army behavioral health specialists diagnosed her with gender dysphoria.
Manning now wants to start hormone replacement therapy inside jail, and though the courts have refused, he she is challenging the decision.
In another twist, he she is also asking the Army to pay for her treatment under their health insurance scheme.
Following his trial, Manning got the longest ever sentence for disclosing U.S. government secrets to others for publication. At his her trial government witnesses testified that some of the leaked information endangered information sources, forced ambassadors to be reassigned, were used as al-Qaida propaganda and even obtained directly by Osama bin Laden.
However, Coombs wrote in a cover letter to Manning's petition that none of Manning's disclosures caused any 'real damage' to the United States and that the documents were not sensitive information meriting protection.
| The court saw it differently but who listens to them anymore? |
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