SWFL veterans upset over Chelsea Manning’s reduced sentence

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FORT MYERS, Fla. — Some Southwest Florida veterans are furious about President Barack Obama’a decision to reduce Chelsea Manning’s prison sentence, the former Army intelligence analyst who leaked classified documents to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.

“I think any time you violate your role as a government employee, you should go to jail and you should stay there,” veteran Bill Hoover said.

Former CIA director Porter Goss, a Sanibel resident, was stunned at Obama’s decision.

“I think history is going to judge him very harshly on this, even though he may have been well-intended,” Goss said.

Manning was more than six years into a 35-year sentence for leaking classified government and military documents. She was known as Bradley Manning at the time of her 2010 arrest and came out as transgender after being sentenced.

She attempted suicide twice last year, according to her lawyers.

Her sentence is now set to expire May 17.

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