The effective difference between a commute down to the time a person already served and a pardon isn't exactly massive.
I'm sure there is a legal difference, but de facto, i'm not so sure.
No, but straight up assuming a person gets a very light sentence and a pardon on top of that seems a bit odd when also talking about a person who was convicted of similar crimes and had their sentence commuted down to an effective immediate release.
Putting aside that Mannings leaks made Assange a household name, who years later only happened to have dirt on democrats but nothing on Republicans during the 2016 election.