A 25-year-old federal contractor from Georgia has been charged with leaking top-secret government information to the news media, the Justice Department said Monday.
Reality Leigh Winner allegedly mailed a classified report about Russia’s interference with the 2016 U.S. presidential election to an online news outlet, according to the New York Times.
She was arrested at her home in Augusta, Ga. over the weekend and appeared in federal court Monday. Winner faces up to a decade in prison if convicted.
Here’s what to know about the accused leaker:
Who is she?
Winner has worked since February as a contractor with Pluribus International Corporation at a U.S. government agency facility in Georgia, where she has held top-secret clearance, federal prosecutors said.
Winner joined the military shortly after graduating from high school and previously worked as a linguist for the Air Force, her mother said. The Texas native can speak Farsi, Dari and Pashto and excelled in school and sports, according to her mother. Winner had told her mother that she opposed President Donald Trump, but she had not protested the administration publicly.
“I never thought this would be something she would do,” her mother Billie Winner-Davis told The Guardian. “I mean, she has expressed to me that she is not a fan of Trump, but she’s not someone who would go and riot or picket.”
“I am still in shock,” she added. “She’s a beautiful girl. Everyone who meets her loves her, and she’s kind.”
What is she accused of?
The Justice Department said Winner was charged with removing classified material from a government facility and illegally transmitting it to an online news outlet.
In May, she allegedly printed classified defense information from an intelligence community agency and sent it to a media outlet days later, federal prosecutors said.
The Justice Department did not name the news outlet. However, Winner’s arrest came hours after The Intercept published a May 5 intelligence report from the National Security Agency.
The investigative online news organization said in its report that the anonymously obtained classified intelligence report is the “most detailed U.S. government account of Russian interference in the election that has yet come to light.”
Winner could be fined and imprisoned up to 10 years, according to an FBI affidavit.
“Releasing classified material without authorization threatens our nation’s security and undermines public faith in government,” Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said in a statement. “People who are trusted with classified information and pledge to protect it must be held accountable when they violate that obligation.”
