President Obama has one week to end his war on whistleblowers and pardon Chelsea Manning

Both Manning and Edward Snowdon face real peril under Donald Trump – no thanks to Julian Assange or Wikileaks, which benefited from her bravery

Chelsea Manning could potentially face the death penalty for treason when Donald Trump becomes president (Reuters)

President Barack Obama (how comforting those words feel) has seven days to save the life of Private Chelsea Manning after two failed suicide bids. In a twist to the tale worthy of a Le Carre novel, Manning’s life is at risk after the whistleblowing website she leaked to helped elect a demagogue whose inner circle believes that she should be executed for treason.

People close to Manning fear for her future. She spent six months in solitary confinement, an arbitrary punishment defined as torture under international law. An army board even confined her to solitary confinement as punishment after her suicide attempt last July. She was found not guilty of the charge of “resisting the force cell move team” – but only because she may have been unconscious when her jailers arrived.

After two suicide attempts and a hunger strike in just over six months, Manning is in serious danger. President Obama, a former constitutional lawyer, can free her with a stroke of his pen this week. If he doesn’t, the consequences will be grave.

Manning has been sentenced to 35 years in prison, the longest sentence ever for a US whistleblower. Instead, she should be feted: the leaked documents she exposed demonstrated US complicity in crimes in Iraq, showed how US private contractors abusing civilians and led to the public in Tunisia turning against their ruthless tyrant President Ben Ali (and commenced the Arab Spring).

As activist Sami Ben Gharbia wrote on the impact of Manning’s leaks on the Tunisian revolution: “If the US will take 35 years from Chelsea Manning’s life, may it console her that she has given us, Arabs, the secret gift that helped expose and topple 50 years of dictatorships.”

It should be said unambiguously: Chelsea Manning is a hero who has freed people from dictatorship. Yet the election of Donald Trump now poses a risk to her life. Trump’s inner circle has called for the death penalty for whistleblowers, except when it suits their narrow interests.

Here lies a dark irony: the whistleblowing website Chelsea Manning approached to leak the cables she downloaded, Wikileaks, played a major role in the election of President-elect Donald Trump. It is becoming increasingly clear that the Russian government authorised a hack on both US presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, during the campaign. This was confirmed by an extraordinary joint statement of the Homeland Security Department and the Director of National Intelligence on behalf of America’s 17 intelligence agencies which said:

“The US Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organisations. The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks... are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process.”

Wikileaks denies this. It is also known that, while Wikileaks aligned itself with Trump by publishing leaked emails to derail Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, the site made no disclosures about Trump. This is despite Trump refusing to disclose his tax returns – the first president not to do so since Gerald Ford. Rumours now abound that the Russians may have more than one sex tape on Trump and information on his private businesses.

In a worrying turn, the Russian government is now claiming Britain’s MI6 was involved in the “leak” on Trump’s private behaviour in Moscow, in order to drive a wedge between the President-elect and the UK. All the while, Wikileaks’ Julian Assange protests his innocence though the evidence on his collusion with the Russians to bolster Trump appears to mount.

By allying with Trump, Assange has hurt Manning. He has also made it harder for Edward Snowden to return home to the US.

Snowden is also now in danger due to the Trump presidency. Mike Pompeo, the Kansas congressman who Trump has given the job of running the CIA, has called for the execution of “traitor” Edward Snowden.

Maybe we could give Assange the benefit of the doubt and assume the Kremlin disguised its activity and gave Wikileaks the leaked materials on Clinton via a third party. It is also the case that it is unlikely Assange was passed any damning evidence on Trump, after all, why would they?

Yet, it makes it all the more important for Wikileaks to understand its responsibility in publishing leaked materials. By doing so, and publishing documents that aid Putin’s autocracy, Assange has caused harm to two people I imagine he would not want to hurt.

Ultimately, one man can end his relentless war on whistleblowers: President Barack Obama. His administration has used the 1917 Espionage Act more than any other in American history - and this includes President Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II.

Obama is in many ways a liberal hero, but here he has fallen short. He has just a week to defend the First Amendment right to speak out against the government’s misuse of power.

Snowden and Manning revealed truths that needed to be told. Obama should pardon them both now, for they are in real peril from President-elect Trump.

Mike Harris is CEO of 89up and the publisher of Little Atoms