Reality Winner, Accused NSA Leaker, To Enter Not Guilty Plea

A federal judge says a young woman charged with leaking classified USA documents to a reporter will remain in jail until her trial. They offered to pay Winner’s bond with their 20-acre home in Texas and assured the judge she wouldn’t flee if released.

In an extensive interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, McCullough said victor appears to be an unusual leaker, someone who may think she’s a whistleblower but really isn’t, because her cause is simply to show the public what information the government possesses.

“The important thing is making sure she receives a fair trial”.

Her mother, Billie Winner-Davis, the accused’s mother said that her daughter was a linguist with the Air Force in Maryland and speaks Pashto, Farsi and Dari-languages widely spoken in Iran and Afghanistan, according to CNN. “She’s going to be made an example of”.

Victor was arrested on Saturday after investigators connected her to a leak of highly classified intelligence regarding Russian interference in the US Elections. But the Justice Department didn’t announce her arrest until Monday – the same day The Intercept published a report on the document. The New York Times reports that victor became a contractor with the National Security Agency earlier this year after leaving the Air Force, moving to Georgia to work out of a government eavesdropping center there.

Victor has been jailed in neighbouring Lincoln County since her arrest, according to a booking report released by the sheriff.

“The government is scrapping and crawling to build a mountain out of a mole hill”, Nichols said. The evidence is strong in that she reportedly left a trail of clues behind, she confessed and in a recorded call to her mother from jail, victor indicated she might have had more than one classified document.

“This often-condemned law provides no space to distinguish the extraordinary disclosure of inappropriately classified information in the public interest – whistleblowing – from the malicious disclosure of secrets to foreign governments by those motivated by a specific intent to harm to their countrymen”, Snowden wrote on the Freedom of the Press Foundation website.

Snowden, who has been given asylum in Russian Federation and is also facing prosecution for divulging secret documents, said it is inappropriate to use the Espionage Act to prosecute “whistleblowers” who reveal important news to media.

Their attention now is on seeing their daughter outside of court and letting her prepare for trial.

Other postings on Instagram and Facebook showed she doted on her cat and a dog, liked to cook vegetarian dishes and taught yoga in her free time. Court records say victor held a top-secret security clearance.

She’s an Air Force veteran and works for a defense contractor.

But were her political rantings enough to remove her from a position that gave her access to classified National Security Agency material? “She’s, she’s our victor”.

“There’s not much to comment on right now as far as whether there is a connection between my client and Intercept“, Nichols told NPR.

McCullough said security personnel within an intelligence agency can investigate social media posts even when a clearance isn’t due to be reaffirmed.

Despite their limited professional experience, many are entrusted with handling data containing national security secrets.

In recent months, President Trump has railed against leakers, promising to find them and prosecute them.

Her last tweet appears to be from March 5, when she replied to @AnonymousPress asking, “what happened to the Feb 28th call for Trump to resign?”

Deputy White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders roundly denounced Winner’s “treasonous acts”.

“John Kiriakou, a former Central Intelligence Agency analyst who went to jail after leaking information on United States torture and waterboarding, tweeted “@theintercept should be ashamed of itself.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange also has weighed in, praising victor as a young woman “accused of courage in trying to help us know“.