Former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, whose sentence for leaking documents was commuted by Barack Obama before he left office, slammed the former president and said he accomplished very little while in the White House.
"Despite his faith in our system and his positive track record on many issues over the last eight years, there have been very few permanent accomplishments," Manning wrote in a column in the British newspaper, The Guardian.
Manning is the national-security leaker and transgender soldier, who saw her sentence commuted by Obama, USA Today noted. The commutation allows her to leave the Army's prison at Fort Leavenworth about six years before she would have been eligible for parole.
In her column for The Guardian, Manning was critical of the former president for seeking compromises with his opponents.
"This vulnerable legacy should remind us that what we really need is a strong and unapologetic progressive to lead us," she wrote. "What we need as well is a relentless grassroots movement to hold that leadership accountable."
She recalled sitting in the military headquarters in Fort Drum, New York on the day Obama was first inaugurated in 2009 ready for rapid deployment in Washington, D.C., in case of emergency.
"Ironically, many of the officers and enlisted personnel that were selected for this security detail openly despised President Obama," she said. "The seething vitriol and hatred simmered quietly in that room. In retrospect, it was an ominous foreshadowing of things to come."
She cited Obama's willingness to compromise on everything from health care to foreign policy, but noted he was continually blocked by opponents.
"Now, after eight years of attempted compromise and relentless disrespect in return, we are moving into darker times," she wrote.
"Criminalization will expand, with bigger prisons filled with penalized bodies — poor, black, brown, queer and trans people. People will probably be targeted because of their religion. Queer and trans people expect to have their rights infringed upon.
"We need someone who is unafraid to be criticized, since you will inevitably be criticized. We need someone willing to face all of the vitriol, hatred and dogged determination of those opposed to us.
"Our opponents will not support us nor will they stop thwarting the march toward a just system that gives people a fighting chance to live. Our lives are at risk — especially for immigrants, Muslim people and black people."