Leaker gets five-plus years in prison
She sneaked classified report out of NSA office
AUGUSTA, Ga. — A former government contractor who mailed a classified U.S. report to a news organization was sentenced to more than five years in prison Thursday as part of a plea deal. Prosecutors called it the longest sentence ever imposed for a federal crime involving leaks to the media.
Reality Winner, 26, pleaded guilty in June to a single count of transmitting national security information. The former Air Force translator worked as a contractor at a National Security Agency’s office in Augusta, Georgia, when she printed a classified report and left the building with it tucked into her pantyhose. Winner told the FBI she mailed the document to an online news outlet.
“I would like to apologize profusely for my actions,” Winner told the judge. “… My actions were a cruel betrayal of my nation’s trust in me.”
Authorities never identified the news organization, but the Justice Department announced Winner’s June 2017 arrest the same day The Intercept reported on a secret NSA document. It detailed Russian government efforts to penetrate a Florida-based supplier of voting software and the accounts of election officials ahead of the 2016 presidential election. The NSA report was dated May 5, the same as the document Winner had leaked.
U.S. intelligence agencies later confirmed Russian meddling.
The sentence imposed by U.S. District Court Judge J. Randal Hall was in line with a plea agreement between Winner’s defense team and prosecutors, who recommended she serve five years and three months behind bars.
U.S. Attorney Bobby Christine told reporters that Winner’s punishment is the longest sentence ever given for a federal crime involving a leak of secret information to the news media. Winner will get credit for having spent more than a year in jail already, he said.
Among other leak cases cited by prosecutors in court documents, the stiffest prior sentence was three years and seven months in prison given to former FBI explosives expert Donald Sachtleben. Secret information he leaked included intelligence he gave to The Associated Press for a story about a U.S. operation in Yemen in 2012.