Chelsea Manning Is Running For U.S. Senate Seat In Maryland
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- A former U.S. soldier convicted of espionage is running for a Maryland seat in the U.S. Senate.
Chelsea Manning, formerly known as Bradley Manning, had her sentence commuted by President Obama last year, and has filed to run in the Democratic primary.
Manning enters the political ring with a high-profile background after being tried and convicted of espionage in 2013.
While serving in Iraq, Manning copied and passed on 700,000 documents, including classified documents, to the Wikileaks website, and also provided video of a U.S. helicopter attack in Iraq that killed civilians and two journalists.
Supporters considered it courageous whistleblowing.
"It helped expose war crimes that should have been reported early on," one supporter said.
Manning, who transitioned from male to female while in prison, was sentenced to 35 years, but Obama commuted that sentence in his last days of office, and she was released after serving 7 years.
In announcing clemency, President Obama said, "I feel very comfortable that justice has been served, and that a message has still been sent."
Manning is now sending her own message in a YouTube ad announcing her campaign for U.S. Senate, promoting herself as someone willing to fight.
"We need to stop expecting that our systems will somehow fix themselves. We need to actually take the reigns of power from them. We need to challenge them at every level," the announcer says in the ad.
Manning, whose listed residence is in Bethesda, is running for the Democratic primary nomination in June, for the seat held by Baltimore incumbent Ben Cardin.
Manning still has a felony record, but Maryland law extends voting rights to felons who have completed their sentences.
Senator Cardin has not yet announced if he will run for a third term in office.
Follow @CBSBaltimore on Twitter and like WJZ-TV | CBS Baltimore on Facebook