NSA leaker Reality Winner seeks clemency
Reality Winner, a former NSA contractor convicted of leaking confidential information to the media, is asking President Donald Trump to cut short her sentence, court documents provided by her attorney show.
“Her continued incarceration is costly, unnecessary to protect the public, burdensome to her health and wellbeing, and not commensurate with the severity of her offense,” wrote Alison Grinter, the attorney representing Winner, in a petition for the commutation of her client’s sentence last week.
News of the request comes on the heels of Trump’s sweeping — and controversial — show of clemency on Tuesday, when he commuted the prison sentence of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich in granting nearly a dozen high profile pardons and commutations.
Winner, a US Air Force veteran, was sentenced to prison for more than five years in August 2018 as part of a deal in which she pleaded guilty to leaking a classified NSA document providing details of a 2016 Russian cyberattack on a supplier of US voting software. She’s serving the longest sentence ever given to a journalistic source by a federal court, according to the Department of Justice.
Grinter noted that Winner was diagnosed with depression, anxiety and bulimia and is “enduring substantial suffering” due to the lack of treatment at FMC Carswell, the federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas, where she’s been held.
The Department of Justice confirmed to CNN that Winner has a pending petition for commutation.
In her petition, Grinter said Winner’s sentence was disproportionate to her crime and has “expressed sincere remorse for betraying her country’s trust and for the potential that her actions put her nation in danger.” While being incarcerated, Winner “has exhibited model behavior while incarcerated, with no infractions” and has served as a fitness trainer, the filing said.
“Reality Winner has shown through her service to her country and during her time incarcerated that she has a lot to give to her country and her community and has a great willingness to be of service,” the filing stated.
Winner began her sentence in June 2017 and is set to be released by December 2021, according to the filing.
Trump’s pardons on Tuesday, however, focused on convicted white-collar criminals.
Among those granted clemency were former New York police commissioner Bernie Kerik, convicted of tax fraud and lying to officials; Mike Milken, an investment banker known as the “Junk Bond King” who was convicted of felony charges that included securities fraud and conspiracy; and Eddie DeBartolo Jr., the former owner of the San Francisco 49ers who pleaded guilty in 1998 to failing to report a felony in a bribery case.
