The unusually named Reality Winner, 25, was charged with removing classified material from a government facility located in Georgia. She was arrested on June 3, the Justice Department said.
The charges were announced less than an hour after The Intercept published a top-secret document from the US National Security Agency that described Russian efforts to launch cyber attacks on at least one US voting software supplier and send “spear-phising” emails, or targeted emails that try to trick a recipient into clicking on a malicious link to steal data, to more than 100 local election officials days before the presidential election last November.
US intelligence agencies including the NSA and CIA have fallen victim to several thefts of classified material in recent years, often at the hands of a federal contractor. For example, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in 2013 disclosed secret documents to journalists, including the South China Morning Post while he was hiding in Hong Kong.
“Releasing classified material without authorization threatens our nation’s security and undermines public faith in government. People who are trusted with classified information and pledge to protect it must be held accountable when they violate that obligation,” Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said in a statement.
While the charges do not name the publication, a US official with knowledge of the case said Winner was charged with leaking the NSA report to The Intercept. A second official confirmed The Intercept document was authentic and did not dispute that the charges against Winner were directly tied to it.
The Intercept’s reporting reveals new details behind the conclusion of US intelligence agencies that Russian intelligence services were seeking to infiltrate state voter registration systems as part of a broader effort to interfere in the election, discredit Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and help then Republican candidate Donald Trump win the election.
The Intercept said that the NSA, Washington’s most important signals intelligence body, sought first to dissuade them from publishing it, and then requested redactions of sensitive information.
The report shows that, by trying to steal log-in credentials and using spear-fishing emails to plant malware, the hackers “obtained and maintained access to elements of multiple US state or local electoral boards.”
“Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate actors ... executed cyber espionage operations against a named US company in August 2016, evidently to obtain information on elections-related software and hardware solutions,” the NSA report says, according to The Intercept.
“The actors likely used data obtained from that operation to ... launch a voter registration-themed spear-phishing campaign targeting US local government organisations.”
The new material does not, however, suggest that actual votes were manipulated.
The Intercept co-founding editor Glenn Greenwald did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“She said that she had been arrested by the FBI and that she couldn’t really talk about it,” her mother, Billie Winner-Davis, told the Guardian in a telephone interview.
“I am still in shock.”
Winner-Davis said she was unaware that her daughter had allegedly already admitted, when questioned, to taking the top-secret document. Nor had she heard of the Intercept, the media outlet reported to have been the leak’s destination. And she really did not know why Reality would have done it.
“I never thought this would be something she would do,” Winner-Davis said.
“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.”
While partially redacted, the NSA document is marked to show it would be up for declassification on May 5, 2042.
The indictment against Winner alleges she “printed and improperly removed” classified intelligence reporting that was dated “on or about May 5, 2017.”
Classified documents are typically due to be declassified after 25 years under an executive order signed under former president Bill Clinton.
The NSA opened a facility in Augusta in 2012 at Fort Gordon, a US Army outpost.
The FBI and several congressional committees are investigating how Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election and whether associates of Trump may have colluded with Russian intelligence operatives during the campaign.
Trump has dismissed the allegations as “fake news,” while attempting to refocus attention on leaks of information to the media.
Winner graduated from basic military training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio in 2011. Investigators determined she was one of only six individuals to print the document in question and that she had exchanged emails with the news outlet, according to the indictment.
Reuters, Agence France-Presse, The Guardian
Russia-U.S. Election: Contractor sued for leaking information
Reviewed by Debo Olowu
on
June 06, 2017
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Reviewed by Debo Olowu
on
June 06, 2017
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