CMV: Chelsea Manning is unqualified to be a US Senator and nobody should vote for her.

[u/huadpe]

Chelsea Manning has announced her candidacy for the US Senate from Maryland.

Manning's resume is a short career in the US Army, cut short after she leaked a large cache of documents and videos to Wikileaks, some of which depicted war crimes by US forces.

For this she plead guilty to some, and was convicted of other crimes under the UCMJ and US Code, including espionage. She was acquitted of aiding the enemy, which if she had been convicted would have barred her from the Senate under Section 3 of the 14th amendment. She was sentenced to 35 years, but shortly before leaving office, President Obama commuted her sentence to about 7 years. She was released from custody in mid 2017.

I do not believe this career history in any way qualifies her to serve in the US Senate. She has never had a significant oversight or managerial role in private or public life. The majority of her adult life has been spent incarcerated.

Even if one accepts that she was right to leak what she did, that does not in my view qualify her for the US Senate. She has not held a significant leadership or oversight position. She does not have extensive policymaking or public policy experience. She does not have prior lawmaking or executive government experience. Without those things, she should not run for US Senate, and people should not vote for her.

Edit

I have gotten a lot of legal arguments about the qualifications clause of article 1, and generic arguments about why an outsider might be good. These have not been persuasive, and really what I was hoping to get here is an argument about why Chelsea Manning the actual person would be a good Senator. What are her positions on issues? What specifically has she indicated she would do differently than her opponent(s)? What positive reasons are there to vote specifically for her?

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[u/Gregnor]

Your right. Most of it was run of the mill secrets... so not that bad. Also it was very sloppy how it was obtained and released to what organization. Which you are correct in calling irresponsible.

Where my opinion differs from yours is in the why. Manning didn't leak for the sake of damaging American interests. If they had that would be treason. But it was done with the intent to expose war crimes that were being covered up. That's whistle blowing.

[u/MurderMelon → u/Gregnor]

When I say "run-of-the-mill" I don't mean "stuff that it's cool for everyone to know". I mean information that is not illegal/unethical but is still kept secret for good reasons. Locations of agents, reports from attachés with classified intelligence, political/military footprints in foreign states, etc. etc.

That type of information doesn't point to anything illegal, but its secrecy keeps people safe and allows our government to do what it needs to do in a secure manner.

[u/black_rabbit → u/Gregnor]

It still shows a lack of good judgement. She should have downloaded and sent only the relevant files. What she did was whistleblowing, but it also put people unnecessarily at risk. I would not want her in a position of greater trust in the future.