Chelsea Manning files to run for US Senate in Maryland

Updated

Chelsea Manning, a former Army private jailed for passing government documents onto WikiLeaks, has filed to run for the U.S. Senate in Maryland.

Manning is set to run as a Democrat in the upcoming November elections, which puts her up against Sen. Ben Cardin, according to the filings first reported by the Washington Post.

Cardin, a Democrat, is Maryland’s senior senator and has already served two terms.

The 30-year-old whistle blower in 2013 was convicted for sharing thousands of classified government documents with WikiLeaks and was sentenced to 35 years behind bars. A day after her sentencing, Manning released a statement explaining that she identified as female.

She changed her name from Bradley Manning to Chelsea and transitioned during her time behind bars at the all-male facility.

In the final days of his presidency, Barack Obama commuted Manning’s sentence and she was released from the Fort Leavenworth military prison in Kansas in May 2017 after spending several years in custody.

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