When a National Security Agency whistleblower leaked a document related to Russia's cyber spying, she says she never expected that she would be charged with espionage herself. Now Reality Winner's high-profile case has resurrected a debate over prosecution of national security leakers.
In 2017, Winner mailed a top-secret document to an online news outlet intending to set the record straight about which foreign entity had interfered in the 2016 presidential election. After he took office, President Donald Trump continued to equivocate when speaking about Russian interference, including the attack on the Democratic National Committee.
But there had been another hack that targeted the state and local officials who managed voter registration systems. The NSA — and by extension, the White House — had evidence the attack had been carried out by Russian military intelligence. Winner, then an intelligence contractor at the NSA, saw the classified report on an in-house newsfeed in early May 2017.
In an interview with 60 Minutes, Winner told correspondent Scott Pelley she was aware of what she was doing when she anonymously mailed the report to The Intercept.
"I knew it was secret," she said. "But I also knew that I had pledged service to the American people. And at that point in time, it felt like they were being led astray."
Winner was arrested two days before The Intercept published the document in June 2017, and within hours of publication, the Justice Department announced she...
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