Chelsea Manning Files To Run for U.S. Senate in Maryland

Transgender activist Chelsea Manning has filed to run for a U.S. Senate seat in Maryland according to a report from the Washington Post.

Manning filed for her candidacy to the Federal Election Commission on Thursday as a Democrat. The activist will be challenging Democrat Senator Ben Cardin, Maryland's Senior Senator who is up for election in 2018. Cardin is expected to win the race for his third term.

In 2013, Manning (then known as Bradley Manning) was convicted of leaking classified documents to Wikileaks and was sentenced to 35 years in prison. During his last year in office, President Barack Obama commuted Manning's sentence to time served. Manning was released from a military prison in Kansas last November. 

At the time, Obama called Manning's sentence "disproportionate" compared to sentences given to other whistleblowers. 

After her release, Manning moved to Maryland where she remained active on issues of transparency, free speech, civil liberties transgender rights and computer security. 

A felony conviction does not bar any citizen from running for the Senate. The Constitution only requires that candidates for a Senate seat be 30 years old, a citizen of the United States for nine years, and resides in  the state they're running in.

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