When I read this week that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy — just seven weeks into his new role as Washington’s most powerful Republican — had leaked a massive treasure trove of Capitol Police security videos of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection to Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, my mind immediately went toward somebody else: Reality Winner.
Winner, you may recall, was the young Army veteran and security consultant who in 2017 decided to become a whistleblower when she learned in the course of her job that the federal government knew a lot more about Russian hacking into U.S. election systems than it was telling the public. The then-25-year-old’s leak of one document had the desired impact, as some election officials even acknowledged this news led to greater vigilance and beefed-up security.
But there were no medals or parades for Reality Winner’s act of heroism. On the contrary, federal agents and prosecutors from the administration of Donald Trump — Moscow’s preferred candidate, but probably just a coincidence, right? — came down hard. After she was cornered into a guilty plea, a judge meted out a staggering 63-month prison sentence, the longest for the leak of a government document in American history. Winner was ultimately confined for 44 months, including a difficult stint in a Texas federal lockup where she contracted COVID-19.
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