Reality Winner - yes, that's her real name - pleaded guilty in federal court in Georgia on June 26. She had been in pretrial confinement since her arrest in June 2017 for alleged violations of the Espionage Act.
Winner was accused of - and has now admitted to - leaking a classified report produced by the National Security Agency about Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election. It detailed attempted hacks by the GRU, Russia's military intelligence service, against local election officials and a company that sold software for voter registration.
Let's put that in perspective. I served in the intelligence community for almost 28 years in a variety of positions with assignments to the Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, and yes, NSA. (No one in the intelligence community calls it "the NSA" - that identifies you as an outsider.)
Virtually every foreign intelligence report published by NSA is not just classified, but is also designated as Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) that requires special handling in designated communications channels. This one was no exception.
Here is an image of the first page*:
I have highlighted the classification markings that appear at the top and bottom of each page. Note that each paragraph and the title also bear a classification marking that pertains to that portion of the text. This report is marked:
TOP SECRET//SI//ORCON//REL TO USA, FVEY/FISA
Translation:
TOP SECRET - The material is classified Top Secret, the highest level. The lower classifications are Confidential and Secret.
SI - This material is based on Special Intelligence, or information derived from the intercept and exploitation of foreign communications. This is probably the major issue - the Russians will easily determine which of their communications systems are vulnerable and will secure them, eliminating forever a valuable intelligence source.
ORCON - the report is Originator Controlled, meaning that further distribution of the report requires the producing agency's (NSA in this case) express authorization.
REL TO USA, FVEY - the information is releasable to authorized recipients in the USA and the "Five Eyes" countries. These are Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.
FISA - This report contains information collected in response to a warrant issued in accordance with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
This was not an act of a whistleblower - a whistleblower reports issues, violations, fraud, etc. to his/her chain of command, or the organization's inspector general (all government agencies have them), but NEVER to the media. This is especially true when dealing with classified information - as in this case. Ms, well now, Inmate Winner knows this full well - she is a former U.S. Air Force linguist. Military personnel are trained on the proper handling of classified material.
So why did she feel the need to photocopy a highly restricted Top Secret document from her place of work and email it to a media outlet - The Intercept - with past associations with the likes of the traitor Edward Snowden and his shill Glenn Greenwald? She said she was mad about some things she had seen in the media, and wanted to set the facts right. No excuse to go to a media outlet with a record of releasing sensitive national security information.
Winner entered a guilty plea, part of a deal with the federal government which will require her to serve up to five years and three months in prison. She has been jailed at the Lincoln County Justice Center since her arrest. The photos above tell the toll incarceration has taken.
Who knows what five years in a federal prison will do to her? Given the fact that she has pleaded guilty to a violation of the Espionage Act - it is as serious as it sounds - I doubt she is going to a Martha Stewart level minimum security facility, also known as "Club Fed."
At her plea hearing, she stated, "All of these actions I did willfully, meaning I did them of my own free will." At least she owned up to her treason.
I guess the views of her mother's clouded judgment will be the end of this story. In her words, she hopes the public will see her daughter as a “good person... Reality Winner, I don’t want her name to go down as being someone in history who betrayed or hurt her country.”
Sorry, mom, that's exactly who she is and what she did. Look on the bright side - with time served, she'll likely be out by age 30.
By that time, The Intercept will have forgotten her and moved on to the next betrayal of the country.
No worries, though, I am sure there will be a big demand for ex-con waitresses who might still remember how to speak Farsi.
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* You can download/read the entire leaked document (with NSA-requested redactions) here.
** Here is The Intercept's reportage of convicted felon Inmate Winner's plea deal. As you might expect, their view is a bit afield of mine. In my opinion, they threw her under the bus - a first year counterintelligence officer would have figured this out in about eight hours.
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