Contractor held in leak aired views online

CONTRACTOR held in leak aired views online.

AUGUSTA, Ga. — Before she was charged with leaking U.S. government secrets to a reporter, Reality Leigh Winner shared sometimes scathing opinions on President Donald Trump and his policies for the whole world to see.

The 25-year-old U.S. government contractor has worked since February in Augusta, Ga., for a federal agency that neither prosecutors nor her defense lawyer will name and where she had access to sensitive documents. But the secretive nature of her job didn’t stop Winner from speaking freely on politics and other topics on social media accounts accessible to anyone.

She posted on Facebook three months ago that climate change is a more important issue than health care “since not poisoning an entire population seems to be more in line with ‘health’ care, and not the disease care system that people voted for a soulless ginger orangutan to ‘fix.’”

Winner remained locked up Tuesday on federal charges that she made copies of classified documents containing top-secret material and mailed them to an online news organization. She is scheduled to appear before a federal judge Thursday for a detention hearing.

Winner served six years in the Air Force before she moved to Georgia early this year, according to her mother, Billie Winner-Davis.

“She’s got a good heart,” Winner-Davis said. “She serves her community, she served her country. She believes in always doing what’s right.”

Gary Davis, Winner’s stepfather, said she turned down a full college scholarship in order to join the Air Force. Court records say Winner held a top-secret security clearance.

“I know my daughter. She’s a patriot,” Davis said. “She served with distinction in one of the highest-classified jobs in the Air Force.”

Winner’s mother said she was stunned when her daughter called over the weekend, saying the FBI had arrived at her home and that she was being arrested. Winner asked if her mother and stepfather, who live in Texas, would travel to Georgia to help feed her cat.

“Mainly she was concerned about her cat,” Winner-Davis said.

Court documents accuse Winner of mailing a classified report written on or about May 5 to an unnamed news organization. The website The Intercept reported Monday that it had obtained a classified National Security Agency report dated May 5 suggesting Russian hackers attacked at least one U.S. voting software supplier days before last year’s presidential election.

Winner’s defense attorney, Titus Thomas Nichols, would not confirm whether she was being charged with leaking the NSA report cited by The Intercept.

On social media, Winner mostly shared glimpses into her life far removed from politics — such as watching Doctor Who with her cat and serving her family a vegetarian meal of barbecued jackfruit.

“I just know she cares about her world and taking care of people and animals,” Winner-Davis said. “I never termed her as a political activist at all, ever.”

Winner’s Facebook page does mention reaching out to U.S. Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., after Trump nominated Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency.

And in an angry reply to a report that Trump said he wasn’t hearing complaints about building the Dakota Access oil pipeline, Winner wrote on Facebook: “I’m losing my mind. If you voted for this piece of [expletive], explain this. He’s lying.”

In a court affidavit filed late Tuesday, the FBI said it searched Winner’s home and seized her passport; two spiral-bound notebooks; two laptop computers and other computer equipment; and a Department of Defense-issued country handbook for Iran.

A separate affidavit by FBI agent Justin Garrick said the government found out about the leaked documents from the news outlet that received them. He said the agency that housed the report was able to identify six people — including Winner — who had made copies of the report.

The report said Russian military intelligence “executed cyber espionage operations against a named U.S. company in August 2016 evidently to obtain information on elections-related software and hardware solutions, according to information that became available in April 2017.”

The report suggests election-related hacking penetrated further into U.S. voting systems than previously known. A Kremlin spokesman denied the report.

Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for President Vladimir Putin, denied the allegations Tuesday, saying the Kremlin did not see “any evidence to prove this information is true.” He said Russia categorically denies “the possibility” of the Russian government being behind it.

The Intercept contacted the National Security Agency and the national intelligence director’s office about the document, and both agencies asked that it not be published. U.S. intelligence officials then asked The Intercept to redact certain sections.

The Intercept, a digital magazine founded by journalists involved in the release of documents leaked by NSA contractor Edward Snowden, said some material was withheld at U.S. intelligence agencies’ request because it wasn’t “clearly in the public interest.”

The Associated Press could not confirm the authenticity of the May 5 NSA document, which The Intercept said it obtained anonymously.