Federal Government Contractor Charged With Removing and Mailing Classified Materials to a News Outlet
The FBI arrested a federal contractor from Augusta, Georgia, on Saturday and charged her with leaking top-secret intelligence to a news outlet, the Justice Department said Monday.
NBC News confirmed that 25-year-old Reality Leigh Winner was arrested on charges involving the leak of a top-secret National Security Agency document to The Intercept that detailed a Russian hacking operation targeting US voting systems.
JUST IN: FBI has arrested and charged the woman they say leaked a Top Secret document to The Intercept, federal official tells NBC News.
— NBC News (@NBCNews) June 5, 2017
Winner was hired by Pluribus International Corporation in early February and held top secret security clearance, the Justice Department said. The company’s clients include the Defense Intelligence Agency, US Army, and US Central Command.
The FBI special agent who wrote the affidavit in support of Winner’s arrest alleges that she printed out the document from her work computer on May 9, 2017, and mailed it to a “News Outlet.” The outlet then showed the document to the NSA —referred to as “the Government Agency” — in order to confirm its authenticity.
Winner “admitted intentionally identifying and printing the classified intelligence reporting at issue” and mailing it to the outlet, according to the affidavit.
In a statement, Vivian Siu, the director of communications at The Intercept, said the document was provided to the outlet anonymously.