a president commuting a sentence is orthogonal to whether or not a crime actually occurred. imo, the president was reacting to the political reality that, in the public eye, manning was becoming a sympathetic character and had already been punished enough. there's no particular reason why the same deal would be extended to assange, who has essentially spent the last several years thumbing his nose at the US government.

> it's like... if I commit a robbery and you drive the getaway vehicle, I am (the actual robber) deemed innocent and let go, but you still go to prison for being an accomplice. It makes little sense?

it could easily be the case that there's enough evidence to show that a robbery occurred and that I drove the getaway car, but not enough to convict you of the robbery itself. the fact that one of the accused in an alleged conspiracy is found not guilty really has no bearing on whether others can still be convicted.