Reality Winner Sentenced To 5 Years, 3 Months For
Leaking Classified Info
August 23, 201812:17 PM ET
Reality
Winner leaves the Augusta Courthouse on June 8, 2017, in Augusta, Ga. Winner, a
former intelligence industry contractor, pleaded guilty to leaking National
Security Agency documents.
Sean Rayford/Getty Images
Reality Winner, the
former National Security Agency contractor who pleaded guilty to leaking
classified intelligence to a media outlet, has been sentenced to more than five
years in prison.
On Thursday, a
federal judge in Georgia approved a plea deal that called for five years and
three months in prison along with three years of supervision after release.
Winner, 26, also
will have to complete 100 hours of community service once she is released.
The Air Force veteran is the first person to
be prosecuted by the Trump administration for leaking to the press; the Obama
administration prosecuted eight leakers under the Espionage Act,
more than all previous administrations combined.
In a court filing
earlier this month, prosecutors said the recommended 63-month sentence would be
"the longest sentence served by a federal defendant for an unauthorized
disclosure to the media."
It's more than twice as long as the sentence
for a former CIA officer who disclosed the name of a covert officer to the press,
and more than three times as long as the sentence for an FBI translator
who leaked wiretaps of the Israeli Embassy to a blogger.
In justifying the
sentence, federal prosecutors emphasized that Winner acted "willfully"
and was always aware the report she leaked was classified as top secret. They
said comparing her case to other leaking cases is "of little utility"
because the details of such cases are often classified.
Winner, who worked for private contractor
Pluribus International, sent classified documents to the online news site The
Intercept detailing an attempt by Russian military intelligence to attack U.S.
elections, specifically by trying to "phish" more than 100
local election officials.
After The Intercept published its report, NPR's Pam Fessler has reported, "State election officials express[ed]
anger that they learned about the cyberattack from the news media, and not from
federal authorities."
Winner was caught after The Intercept
apparently showed officials a copy of the document, NPR's Martin Kaste
has reported. That allowed the government to identify that
it had been printed out and folded. Ultimately, they used "microdots"
on the printout to identify the exact printer where the document was created.
Authorities also found email records showing contact between Winner and the
news outlet.
Winner pleaded guilty in June, after she spent more than
a year in jail without bond.
The Associated Press
reports:
"Her attorneys
had argued for Winner to be released on bond, noting she had no criminal
record and had served honorably in the military. The judge sided with
prosecutors who said Winner posed a potential flight risk and may have
stolen other classified documents.
"Prosecutors
also used Winner's own words against her, including a Facebook chat in
which Winner once wrote to her sister: "Look, I only say I hate
America like 3 times a day."
·
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