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I HOPE SHE GET THE FULL 10 YEARS...AND A DAY !!
The Face of a Radicalized Democrat Traitor to the United States
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Reality Leigh Winner, 25, a federal contractor charged by the U.S. Department of Justice for sending classified material to a news organization, poses in a picture posted to her Instagram account.
WASHINGTON — An intelligence contractor was charged with sending a classified report about Russia’s interference in the 2016 election to the news media, the Justice Department announced Monday, the first criminal leak case under President Trump.
The case showed the department’s willingness to crack down on leaks, as Mr. Trump has called for in complaining that they are undermining his administration. His grievances have contributed to a sometimes tense relationship with the intelligence agencies he now oversees.
The Justice Department announced the case against the contractor, Reality Leigh Winner, 25, about an hour after the national-security news outlet The Intercept published the apparent document, a May 5 intelligence report from the National Security Agency.
The report described two cyberattacks by Russia’s military intelligence unit, the G.R.U. — one in August against a company that sells voter registration-related software and another, a few days before the election, against 122 local election officials.
The Intercept said the N.S.A. report had been submitted anonymously. But shortly after its article was published, the Justice Department said that the F.B.I. had arrested Ms. Winner at her house in Augusta, Georgia, on Saturday. It also said she had confessed to an agent that she had printed out a May 5 intelligence file and mailed it to an online news outlet.
It was not immediately clear who is serving as the defense lawyer for Ms. Winner, who has been charged under the Espionage Act.
An accompanying F.B.I. affidavit said she has worked for Pluribus International Corporation at a government facility in Georgia since Feb. 13. While it did not identify the agency or the facility, the N.S.A. uses Pluribus contractors and opened a branch facility in the suburbs outside Augusta in 2012.
The F.B.I. affidavit said reporters for the news outlet, which it also did not name, had approached the N.S.A. with questions for their story and, in the course of that dialogue, provided a copy of the document in their possession. An analysis of the file showed it was a scan of a copy that had been creased or folded, the affidavit said, “suggesting they had been printed and hand-carried out of a secured space.”
The N.S.A.’s auditing system showed that six people had printed out the report, including Ms. Winner. Investigators examined the computers of those six people and found that Ms. Winner had been in email contact with the news outlet, but the other five had not. In a statement, the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, praised the operation.
“Releasing classified material without authorization threatens our nation’s security and undermines public faith in government,” he said. “People who are trusted with classified information and pledge to protect it must be held accountable when they violate that obligation.”
Espionage Act charges carry a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, although conventional leak cases have typically resulted in prison terms of one to three years.
The Face of a Radicalized Democrat Traitor to the United States
Reality Leigh Winner, 25, a federal contractor charged by the U.S. Department of Justice for sending classified material to a news organization, poses in a picture posted to her Instagram account.
WASHINGTON — An intelligence contractor was charged with sending a classified report about Russia’s interference in the 2016 election to the news media, the Justice Department announced Monday, the first criminal leak case under President Trump.
The case showed the department’s willingness to crack down on leaks, as Mr. Trump has called for in complaining that they are undermining his administration. His grievances have contributed to a sometimes tense relationship with the intelligence agencies he now oversees.
The Justice Department announced the case against the contractor, Reality Leigh Winner, 25, about an hour after the national-security news outlet The Intercept published the apparent document, a May 5 intelligence report from the National Security Agency.
The report described two cyberattacks by Russia’s military intelligence unit, the G.R.U. — one in August against a company that sells voter registration-related software and another, a few days before the election, against 122 local election officials.
The Intercept said the N.S.A. report had been submitted anonymously. But shortly after its article was published, the Justice Department said that the F.B.I. had arrested Ms. Winner at her house in Augusta, Georgia, on Saturday. It also said she had confessed to an agent that she had printed out a May 5 intelligence file and mailed it to an online news outlet.
It was not immediately clear who is serving as the defense lawyer for Ms. Winner, who has been charged under the Espionage Act.
An accompanying F.B.I. affidavit said she has worked for Pluribus International Corporation at a government facility in Georgia since Feb. 13. While it did not identify the agency or the facility, the N.S.A. uses Pluribus contractors and opened a branch facility in the suburbs outside Augusta in 2012.
The F.B.I. affidavit said reporters for the news outlet, which it also did not name, had approached the N.S.A. with questions for their story and, in the course of that dialogue, provided a copy of the document in their possession. An analysis of the file showed it was a scan of a copy that had been creased or folded, the affidavit said, “suggesting they had been printed and hand-carried out of a secured space.”
The N.S.A.’s auditing system showed that six people had printed out the report, including Ms. Winner. Investigators examined the computers of those six people and found that Ms. Winner had been in email contact with the news outlet, but the other five had not. In a statement, the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, praised the operation.
“Releasing classified material without authorization threatens our nation’s security and undermines public faith in government,” he said. “People who are trusted with classified information and pledge to protect it must be held accountable when they violate that obligation.”
Espionage Act charges carry a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, although conventional leak cases have typically resulted in prison terms of one to three years.
