President Barack Obama held his final news conference of his presidency Wednesday. Speaking for an hour with reporters, Obama took questions on life after his presidency, a solution to the Israeli and Palestinian conflicts, advances in LGBT equality in the U.S. and more.
Obama also defended his decision to shorten the sentence of convicted leaker Chelsea Manning. Manning asked Obama last November to commute her 35-year sentence for giving classified government and military documents to the WikiLeaks website.
Manning, who was known as Bradley Manning at the time of her arrest, is more than six years into the sentence. She will be released from prison in May. Republicans have blasted the decision, with House Speaker Paul Ryan calling it "outrageous."
With today’s 209 commutations, @POTUS has commuted sentences of more people than the last 12 presidents combined. https://t.co/t6Cs7NDPh0 pic.twitter.com/qirajGC1eH
— White House Archived (@ObamaWhiteHouse) January 17, 2017
Manning’s commutation was issued Tuesday along with 208 others, NPR reports, including “Oscar Lopez-Rivera, who was part of a militant group that fought for Puerto Rican independence. Obama also pardoned 64 individuals, including retired Gen. James Cartwright, the former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements to federal authorities.”
Watch: President Obama’s final news conference via PBS Newshour
Fact check: President Obama's final news conference with NPR
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