Opinion — On Jeremy Scahill’s June 6, 2018 Intercepted podcast, The Persecution of Reality Winner, his guests, colleagues and he skillfully showed how Reality Winner’s prosecution is a shameless act of the federal government’s prosecutorial overreach to shut down whistleblowers.
President Donald Trump pardoned Navy sailor Kristian Saucier, who pled guilty to violating the Espionage Act after he took photos with his cell phone of a “nuclear attack submarine.” He also destroyed evidence after FBI and NCIS agents interrogated him.
Journalist Kevin Gosztola of Shadow Proof joins me for an in depth discussion of the Reality Winner whistleblowing case. We begin by recapping the case itself and who Reality Winner is. Kevin talks about Winner’s career in the Air Force and later with the NSA as a contractor. We talk about what Winner is accuses of doing: leaking a classified report on Russian hacking of voter software to The Intercept. Kevin touches on The Intercept’s sloppy handling of Winner’s information, and how this contributed to her ultimate arrest.
Defense attorneys for NSA whistleblower Reality Winner contend whether she asked to end her FBI interrogation or leave her home when agents arrived has “little bearing” on whether she was in custody and deserved to be read her rights.
Winner is an NSA contractor who is accused of mailing a classified document on Russian hacking to The Intercept. She was charged with violating the Espionage Act and is currently in detention awaiting trial.
Federal magistrate judge Brian Epps once again denied bail to alleged NSA leaker Reality Winner. This time, Epps contended Winner’s “hate” for America and supposed admiration of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange make her a dangerous threat.
Winner is accused of “removing classified material from a government facility and mailing it to a news outlet.” She allegedly mailed a classified document on Russian hacking to the Intercept and is in pretrial detention awaiting a trial that is currently scheduled for March.
An FBI agent who entered former NSA contractor Reality Winner’s house to execute a search warrant did not think she was a “big bad mastermind prolific spy.” And yet, the government is prosecuting Winner under the Espionage Act, as if she is some kind of spy.
Winner is accused of “removing classified material from a government facility and mailing it to a news outlet.” She allegedly mailed a classified document on Russian hacking to the Intercept and is in pretrial detention awaiting a trial that is currently scheduled for March.
Tom Secker and Robbie Martin join me for a very wide ranging discussion on everything from Reality Winner to Dennis Rodman. Tom and I start off the conversation by talking about the Wikileaks Twitter account tweeting about our issue on The American Journal of Economics and Sociology. We talk about the obvious divide right now between Assange and Wikileaks not just in terms of Twitter, but in terms of their media strategy. The three of us then dive into the bizarre case of NSA leaker Reality Winner. We theorize as to whether she is a true leaker, or a truly disgruntled employee.
