Reality Leigh Winner, 27, is in federal prison for the crime of giving evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 election to the online news outlet The Intercept. She was sentenced to 63 months in jail, the harshest ever under the Espionage Act, and has served nearly two years of that sentence. She is the first whistleblower to be convicted under the Trump administration.
Winner is essentially in jail for the public service of letting the American people know about Russian interference in our election at a time when the role of Russian spies hacking voting machines, manipulating social media and other interventions have been downplayed by the Trump administration.
Compared with other convicted high-ranking officials like Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn, Winner's punishment is disproportionate to say the least. But for those who have been following the drama of whistleblower prosecutions in the United States in recent years, the story seems quite familiar.
The Espionage Act under which Winner was charged – a World War I-era law that was originally meant to be used on spies – makes acts of conscience such as whistleblowing nearly impossible to defend in a court of law. This is why Edward Snowden has stayed in Russia rather return to the US to stand trial.
Despite Winner's being jailed for two years without any major organization advocating on her behalf, a dedicated group of people have taken on the role of pushing for her release.
One of those individuals is Billie Davies-Winner, Reality’s mother, who retired from her career and moved from Georgia to Texas in order to be closer to her daughter. “We’ve never been through anything like this in our lives,” she said in a recent interview with Occupy.com.
“Seeing her in a prison environment breaks everything in me.”
Another tireless supporter, Wendy Meer Collins – known by Winner as her “fairy godmother” – tweets daily on Winner's behalf. Collins said she only learned of Winner's situation through the morning news and wondered why she heard nothing more about her.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about it because it seemed so weird,” Collins said. “I’ve never been an advocate-activist type of person, but this really permeated me. It just seemed so wrong.”
In some ways, Winner may seem like an odd choice to be considered a threat to national security. She is an artist, a vegan and an intelligent young woman with knowledge of Arabic, Farsi and other languages. She worked as an intelligence officer with a high-level security clearance.
However, prosecutors told reporters that “Winner’s purposeful violation put the country at risk” and caused “exceptionally grave damage to U.S. national security.” They also said she “repeatedly expressed contempt for the United States,” citing a conversation she had with her sister on Facebook in which she reportedly said she hated America, though the discussion was “mostly about Americans' obsession with air conditioning.”
Davies-Winner spoke angrily about her daughter's prosecution, calling the courts' denial of bail “cruel” and a punishment that “was just meant to break her.”
“They took everything about her life and they twisted it to make her look bad,” she said.
The idea that somebody with true contempt for America would risk jail in order to give documents to the press proving Russian interference in our elections seems suspect, to put it mildly. As Collins explained, “She’s brilliant, but she has a lot of sarcasm. She says things that can be taken out of context easily.”
Davies-Winner said, “They took her service in the Air Force and they twisted it to say that she plotted this out and that the only reason she joined the Air Force was so she could get this clearance and destroy America. They turned he into something so evil in that court room.”
Winner was offered a full ride at Texas A&M but decided instead to join the US military. According to Davies-Winner, she had a step-brother in the Air Force who also became a linguist, and Winner was “burnt out” from school where she didn’t feel she would fit in well.
Davies-Winner described her daughter as a selfless woman who immerses herself in any topic she gets interested in, including Eastern religions. “Reality always thinks of others before she thinks of herself,” she said. According to her, Winner wanted to be deployed to Afghanistan but was not permitted.
The conditions of her imprisonment in Lincoln County Jail have been awful. Winner was routinely strip-searched, isolated and beaten up while in jail. “It was like walking into Deliverance country,” said Collins, who visited her regularly and described the jail as a “shithole.”
Since being transferred to FMC Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, conditions have improved. Winner is now working two jobs and taking college level classes. However, Davies-Winner and Collins are hoping to loosen the prison’s visiting restrictions, which only allow four people on the visitation list.
Collins receives artwork and collages from Winner. Some of her sketches can be found at Realitywinnerart.com.
The whole experience has disillusioned Davies-Winner. “I always believed in our government and our system and this has totally turned my world upside down because now I see that, No, our government lies to us. They will persecute you if you uncover something they don’t want uncovered.”
Winner is slated to be released from prison in December 2021.
