A judge has ruled that a woman charged with leaking secrets to a reporter will remain jailed until her trial after prosecutors argued that she might possess more stolen intelligence and could try to flee the country.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Brian Epps denied bond Thursday for 25-year-old Reality Winner. Prosecutor Jennifer Solari says investigators seized a notebook from Winner’s house in Augusta, Georgia, and in it, Winner made references about traveling to the Middle East. At one point she wrote, “I want to burn the White House down … find somewhere in Kurdistan to live. Haha.”
Winner worked for a U.S. government contractor in Augusta. She is a former Air Force linguist who speaks Farsi and Arabic. Prosecutors don’t think Winner is a jihadist or terrorist sympathizer, they say that before she left the military, she inserted an external hard drive into a top-secret computer there. They say they don’t know what happened to it or what it might contain.
Winner’s attorney says she should be released and prosecutors are exaggerating the threat she poses.
Being highly knowledgeable in one area does not equate to equal knowledge or wisdom in other areas. Burn the Whitehouse down and go live in Kurdistan? Then you leak top-secret material. The first is a stupid statement to make on any forum. The later is an extreme high risk endeavor. When combined it’s bone headed stupid.
Her motormouth imbecile father can explain how we got her in this jam! You’ve got the stage, pop, take it away!
Maybe start with the part how he’d not like to throw away money on a lawyer!
She wrote ‘haha’ write next to the sentence. “burning down the white house” is clearly hyperbole, “finding someone in Kurdistan” clearly in jest.
To a prosecutor or a judge, it’s irrelevant that it was in jest.
No bond because they don’t want another Snowden taking off to Hong Kong or Russia.
Agree, this kid is naive at best.
Update Govnt is saying evidence is that she took more than one doc, had them on a flash drive.
I say again, this is not a patriotic act. I have only a casual sympathy for her.