President Barack Obama's surprise pardon of Chelsea Manning, reveals "total hypocrisy" on the outgoing commander-in-chief's part following his deep concern over cyber leaks committed by Russian spies, former Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado tells Newsmax TV.
"Here he is going bananas about what he considers to be this horrific transgression by the Russians when they hacked into the election," Tancredo, a 2008 GOP presidential candidate, said Wednesday to Steve Malzberg on "America Talks Live."
"Then you take a guy . . . who was a traitor giving WikiLeaks thousands of documents from the military, secret documents — 10,000 times more dangerous and damaging to the United States than anything that happened in the campaign for the presidency as we just had — and this guy gets a pardon.
"Well no, Mr. President, you can't have it both ways. Well of course he can because he is president, but at least he shouldn't have it in the court of public opinion because it's total hypocrisy."
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On Tuesday, Obama pardoned Manning — a transgender U.S. Army private formerly known as Bradley Manning. Manning had been serving 35 years behind bars at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas for releasing classified national-security secrets.
"Whoever this person is now, whatever gender, it's indicative of a lot of things and certainly another aspect in complete hypocrisy on the part of Barack Obama," Tancredo told Malzberg.
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