Who is Reality Winner, the NSA contractor accused of leaking U.S. secrets to the media?

The Justice Department has accused a National Security Agency contractor named Reality Leigh Winner of leaking highly classified information to a news organization, the first such charge brought by the six-month-old Trump administration, which has been continually plagued by leaks.

Department officials did not reveal where the leaked documents originated or the name of the news organization that Winner allegedly gave them, but the charges coincided with a report published Monday by the online magazine The Intercept, based on leaked NSA documents that made the case Russian military intelligence launched a cyberattack on voting machines during the 2016 election.

This latest leak has drawn intense focus to the person at the center of it, Winner, who up until Monday had just been a 25-year-old contractor based in Georgia, living life in relative anonymity.

So, who is she? What exactly is she accused of doing? Here is what we know about Reality Winner.

Arrest and charges:

The FBI arrested Winner at her home in Augusta, Georgia, on Saturday, June 3. While detained, Winner cooperated with authorities and admitted that on or around May 9, she intentionally printed the classified documents and then mailed it to a news outlet, the Justice Department said.

Related: Trump's 'low-life leakers' are the modern-day 'Deep Throat'

If convicted, Winner could face up to 10 years in prison, CNN reported.

The government hasn’t said exactly how they identified the leak, but one cybersecurity blogger speculated about how it would be easy to link the person printing out documents using information embedded in the documents themselves, which The Intercept posted online.

Winner’s attorney, Titus Thomas Nichols, declined to say whether Winner leaked those documents to The Intercept. A spokeswoman for The Intercept said the documents were received anonymously.

“My client has no (criminal) history, so it’s not as if she has a pattern of having done anything like this before,” Nichols told the Associated Press. “She is a very good person. All this craziness has happened all of a sudden.”

Work and life:

Yes, for those wondering, Reality is her real name, much to the internet’s delight.

The Justice Department said she had been working for an NSA contractor company called Pluribus International Corporation at a government facility in Georgia since Feb. 13, and had Top Secret clearance.

Winner was a linguist with the U.S. Air Force and spoke a number of Arabic languages including Pashto, Farsi and Dari, her mother told a Guardian reporter. A Facebook account that appears to belong to Winner shows that she had attended H.M. King High School in Kingsville, Texas, and that she was an avid weightlifter.

CNN and other news outlets on Tuesday identified a Twitter account believed to belong to Winner, which includes tweets that show her political views and show criticism of President Donald Trump and his administration.

Online reaction:

News of the top-secret leaks from the NSA drew immediate reactions from critics who called her actions stupid and counterproductive to U.S. intelligence, and from supporters like WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange who called her actions courageous.

BuzzFeed reported that Winner’s detention hearing is set for Thursday.

The arrest of Winner also comes at a time when President Donald Trump has vowed to find and prosecute those who leak information from the highest levels of government.

High-level leaks, especially those that pertain to the ongoing investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, have been published by The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN and others.

The Intercept, like numerous other news organizations, has set up ways for whistleblowers to leak information anonymously. In a statement reacting to the charges brought by the Justice Department, The Intercept denies any knowledge of the identity of the person who provided the document.

“While the FBI’s allegations against Winner have been made public through the release of an affidavit and search warrant, which were unsealed at the government’s request, it is important to keep in mind that these documents contain unproven assertions and speculation designed to serve the government’s agenda and as such warrant skepticism,” the statement read.

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Email: luis.gomez@sduniontribune.com

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