SAVANNAH, Ga. — A Georgia woman who mailed a secret U.S. report to a news organization faces the “longest sentence” ever behind bars for a federal crime involving leaks to the news media, prosecutors said in a court filing.
Former National Security Agency contractor Reality Winner, 26, is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 23 by a U.S. District Court judge in Augusta. She pleaded guilty in June to a single count of transmitting national security information when she worked as a translator at an NSA facility in Augusta.
Winner’s plea deal with prosecutors calls for imprisonment of five years and three months. But the sentencing judge isn’t bound by that agreement. Winner’s crime carries a maximum penalty of 10 years.
The Trump administration has made prosecuting government employees who leak sensitive information to the media a high priority, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions pledged to clamp down on leaks last year.
In a court filing Tuesday, federal prosecutors in Winner’s case said the 63-month sentence they’re recommending is plenty stiff to deter other government workers from leaking sensitive information, even if it could be tougher.
“The government advises the Court that despite the agreed-upon sentence being below the applicable guidelines range, it would be the longest sentence served by a federal defendant for an unauthorized disclosure to the media,” the prosecutors wrote.- READ MORE
[divider][/divider]Former White House aide Omarosa Manigault-Newman claimed Tuesday that President Trump knew about the hacked Democratic emails obtained by WikiLeaks before they were released during the height of the 2016 election campaign.
She made the allegation during an interview that aired on MSNBC Tuesday afternoon, saying that Trump “absolutely” knew about the emails before they were released by WikiLeaks. She also said campaign officials were instructed to bring up the emails at every point they could during the end of the campaign.
When asked by the reporter whether she was implying Trump had a back channel to WikiLeaks, Omarosa replied, “I didn’t say that, you did.”
“I will say that I am going to expose the corruption that went on in the campaign and in the White House,” Manigault-Newman added. – READ MORE
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