Former CIA Director Gen Hayden: President Obama Allowed His Compassion To Get In The Way When He Reduced Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

“I don’t think it’s the right move… I did not expect that his decision is what is practically immediate release… so Chelsea Manning, she is going out as soon as possible which turns this from a 35 year sentence, which is pretty hard, to a 7 year sentence which actually isn’t all that hard given that this wasn’t an offhand drink with a newsman where you spilled a secret, this was hundreds of thousands of documents put out there in the public domain to be harvested by our enemy. And no one who does this business would ever pretend to claim that would not have done serious, serious harm. I think this is a case where the President allowed his compassion to get in front of his judgment and frankly get in front of the need of or government to continue to deter these kinds of actions in the future.”

—General Hayden on President Obama commuting Chelsea Manning’s sentence

General Michael Hayden, former CIA & NSA Director, spoke with Kilmeade & Friends about the rift between President-elect Trump and the intelligence community, why it would be wise for the incoming President to take the advice of outgoing CIA director John Brennan and the long term damage President Obama’s decision to commute Chelsea Manning’s prison term will have.

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Hayden on outgoing CIA director John Brenan’s advice to President-elect Trump to stop reacting too spontaneously to information

(HAYDEN) He is giving the incoming President-elect a score on how he processes information and quite frankly how he might be erratic or immediate or too spontaneous with regard to responding to information. Now truth in lending, I think both of those pieces are very sound advice and I would hope the President-elect takes those in and make that part of his calculation going forward. I will leave it that it is a bit unusual for an outgoing CIA chief to say that though.