National Security Agency leaker and convicted felon Reality Winner is going to jail. When initially questioned by the FBI in 2017, she had immediately admitted to stuffing classified documents into her pantyhose in order to leak the national security-sensitive material to the media; after realizing the amount of trouble she was going to be in, she tried to have her admission of guilt thrown out of court. When this failed, her legal team tried an increasingly desperate set of legal maneuvers to get her case thrown out in entirety. All of these attempts failed.
Ms. Winner was going to be facing up to a decade in prison for her betrayal. However, the prosecution allowed her to work out a plea deal in which Winner would publicly admit that she knowingly and willingly committed a crime, in exchange for a lighter sentence. Now, the disgraced intelligence professional and Air Force veteran will be serving a little over five years in prison for crimes against her nation. The narrative that she was a patriot seeking to bring the truth to light is finally dead. #Justice4Reality turns out to be a well-deserved and lengthy federal prison sentence. No matter what her supporters may have claimed, at the end of the day Reality Winner had to admit that she was no political prisoner, she was just a criminal who betrayed the trust of the nation she served.
The NSA leaker has been held without bail since being arrested on June 3, 2017. Her legal team had frequently argued that their client should be released before her trial, claiming that their client was not a danger to anyone. However, the judge cited Winner’s history of expressing anti-American sentiment and support for hostile nations like the Islamic Republic of Iran as proof that she still posed a risk. In materials seized during the search of her home, Winner had writings that included expressions of a desire to “burn the White House down.” With her history of “being mad online” and her willingness to break the law because of it, Reality Winner will hopefully experience the rehabilitation she so desperately needs while incarcerated in prison. Despite the fact that Winner has admitted to knowingly and willingly committing the crimes for which she is being sent to jail, her mother wants everyone to know she is a “good person.” Fair enough, I am sure prison is full of good people who did bad things. However, I think people are going to remember the uniquely named woman for her convictions under the Espionage Act, not that she likes CrossFit, was a somewhat talented artist, and was kind to animals.
Winner’s plea deal says that she will face a possible 63 months in jail, plus another three years of supervised release. The date of her sentencing hearing hasn’t been set; it remains unclear if reality has set in or if the young lady convicted of betraying her country feels like it was worth it and if this feels like winning.
