Trump ‘Troubled’ By Chelsea Manning Commutation, Spokesman Says

Incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Wednesday that Donald Trump is “troubled” by President Barack Obama’s commutation of Chelsea Manning’s sentence and the precedent it sets.

“I think the President-elect is troubled by this action,” Spicer told reporters on a conference call Wednesday morning.

“You have an individual who was convicted of espionage, sentenced to thirty-five years in jail,” he said. “It’s disappointing and it sends a very troubling message when it comes to the handling of classified information and to the consequences to those who leak information that threatens the safety of our nation.”

Spicer also suggested there is a “bit of irony and double standard” surrounding the reaction to Manning’s commutation, compared to the release and use of other leaked information “from the left and the Democrats.”

Asked about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s pledge to agree to U.S. extradition if Obama granted Manning clemency, Spicer said that Trump has not “focused” on that (Assange currently faces neither charges nor an extradition request from the United States).

“I think the focus right now has been on the concerns and message that was sent with respect to Pfc. Manning and that signal that it sends,” he said. “I don’t think that he has really focused on the next part.”

In a 2010 interview resurfaced by CNN, Trump came out strongly against WikiLeaks’ publication of hundreds of thousands of documents Manning leaked to the site.

“I think it’s disgraceful,” he said. “I think there should be like death penalty or something.”

Trump’s relationship with WikiLeaks and Assange warmed significantly during the presidential campaign, when the site took up a virtual war of attrition against Hillary Clinton. The site published private emails from her campaign chairman John Podesta, pushed unfounded speculation about Clinton’s health over Twitter and promoted numerous conspiracy theories pulled from the far-right fringes of the internet.

KT McFarland, Trump’s pick for deputy national security director, once decried WikiLeaks as a “terrorist organization” in an opinion piece for Fox News where she wrote that Manning should be tried “for treason” and, if found guilty, “should be executed.”