Leaker of secret report on hacking gets 5 years

Woman smuggled out report in her pantyhose

Augusta, Ga. — A former government contractor who pleaded guilty to mailing a classified U.S. report to a news organization was sentenced to more than five years in prison Thursday as part of a deal with prosecutors, who called it the longest sentence ever imposed for a federal crime involving leaks to the news media.

Reality Winner, 26, pleaded guilty in June to a single count of transmitting national security information. The former Air Force translator worked as a contractor at a National Security Agency’s office in Augusta, Ga., when she printed a classified report and left the building with it tucked into her pantyhose. Winner told the FBI she mailed the document to an online news outlet.

Wearing an orange jail uniform and shackles in court Thursday, Winner said she took responsibility for “an undeniable mistake that I made.”

“I would like to apologize profusely for my actions,” she told the judge. “... My actions were a cruel betrayal of my nation’s trust in me.”

Authorities never identified the news organization. But the Justice Department announced Winner’s June 2017 arrest the same day The Intercept reported on a secret NSA document. It detailed Russian government efforts to penetrate a Florida-based supplier of voting software and the accounts of election officials ahead of the 2016 presidential election. The NSA report was dated May 5, the same as the document Winner had leaked.

U.S. intelligence agencies later confirmed Russian meddling.

The sentence imposed by U.S. District Court Judge J. Randal Hall was in line with a plea agreement between Winner’s defense team and prosecutors, who recommended she serve five years and three months behind bars.

U.S. Attorney Bobby Christine told reporters Winner’s punishment is the longest sentence ever given for a federal crime involving a leak of secret information to the news media. Winner will get credit for having spent more than a year in jail already, he said.

Christine said Winner’s leak harmed national security by revealing “sources and methods” that impaired U.S. efforts to gather similar information.

“She was the quintessential example of an insider threat,” said Christine, the top federal prosecutor for the Southern District of Georgia.