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Donald Trump has nothing in common with Reality Winner. He also has nothing in common with Terry Albury or Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards.
Winner, Albury, and Edwards each performed a public service by leaking to the press while Trump was president. All three were later prosecuted by the Trump administration and went to prison for telling the truth to the American people.
But don’t confuse Trump’s actions in his classified documents case with what they did. He’s accused of stealing classified information and lying about it, apparently for his own selfish reasons. Public service was never on his mind when he ordered that boxes filled with classified documents be moved around Mar-a-Lago to hide them from the FBI.
After Trump was indicted last week, there were plenty of facile comparisons in the media between his case and those of others like Winner who have been targeted in leak prosecutions. But Winner, Albury, and Edwards were whistleblowers, not narcissists who wanted to hoard government secrets as if they were rare gold coins.
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