Former National Security Agency contractor Reality Winner was sentenced to five years and three months in prison at a federal courthouse in Augusta, Georgia. It was part of a plea agreement approved by the court, where Winner admitted she disclosed classified information in violation of the Espionage Act.
Winner will be incarcerated at Federal Medical Center, Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, primarily because she has been bulimic for 12 years. In a statement read before the court, Winner said bulimia has been “a constant struggle” for her and expressed fear that, if she wasn’t incarcerated at a medical facility, she could turn to bulimia as a coping mechanism. She also suffers from depression after the death of her father in 2016, mere months before the act for which she was prosecuted.
Defense attorney Joe Whitley described Winner’s disclosure as a “poorly considered act of political passion and protest” in an effort to ensure the judge accepted the plea agreement.
Additionally, Winner spoke about her motivations for learning the languages and cultures of countries in the Middle East. Following the attacks on September 11, she said she wanted to intellectually understand what had happened. Her interest in language is what ultimately led her to her line of work.
Defense attorney Joe Whitley described Winner’s disclosure as a “poorly considered act of political passion and protest” in an effort to ensure the judge accepted the plea agreement.
After incarceration, Winner will be subject to three years of supervised release. She will not be required to pay a fine. The judge also did not say whether time served would be factored into her sentence.
Winner apologized in her statement and indicated she took full responsibility for her action.
The plea agreement reflected the seriousness of the espionage defense, Judge James Randal Hall said, adding the oft-heard refrain that it would promote respect for the law.
Prosecutors claimed Winner’s disclosure of the NSA report “caused exceptionally grave damage to national security.” However, that was never proven during course of this case and in fact, prosecutors claimed it didn’t have to be proven to convict her of violating the Espionage Act.
In a statement after the hearing, Justice Department representatives celebrated Winner’s sentence as the longest ever for a defendant convicted of making an unauthorized disclosure.
Winner was in the United States Air Force for six years. She is fluent in Dari, Farsi, and Pashto and worked as a language analyst. When she left the Air Force, she was employed by Pluribus International and worked for the NSA at Fort Gordon.
Click Here: Rugby league Jerseys
She disclosed a copy of an intelligence report from the NSA that alleged Russian hackers targeted voter registration systems during the 2016 election. It was provided to the Intercept, which made several mistakes related to source protection that led authorities to identify Winner as the person who gave the report to the media outlet.
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT