NSA whistleblower Reality Winner sentenced to 5 years, Trump says it’s ‘unfair’
A former government contractor accused of leaking confidential information to the media has been sentenced to more than five years in prison.
On Thursday, a federal judge in Georgia approved a plea deal that called for five years and three months in prison along with three years of supervision after release.
Reality Winner, 26, also will have to complete 100 hours of community service once she is released.
Winner 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 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.
It was the longest sentence ever given to someone for illegally disclosing government information, according to one of Winner’s attorneys, Titus Nichols. The document she gave the news outlet contained technical details on what it said were Russian attempts to hack election officials in the United States and a voting-machine company before the November 2016 presidential election, two U.S. officials with knowledge of the case have said.
Reality Winner
In a Friday morning tweet, Trump called Winner’s leaks “‘small potatoes’ compared to what Hillary Clinton did,” referring to his repeated accusations that his rival in the 2016 election had broken the law in her use of a private email server while Secretary of State.
