It seems like absolutely the wrong thing happened. - Reality Leigh Winner, a 25-year-old woman
from Augusta, Georgia, was charged with removing classified material from a government facility
and distributing it to a news outlet. - If my daughter were in Reality’s position,
I would hope that she would do the exact same thing Reality did.
- A former NSA contractor has been sentenced to more than five years in prison for leaking
a classified document. - Reality’s been in prison for, as of today,
1,391 days. That’s 3.8 years. - That’s the longest sentence ever imposed
for this kind of violation. - I’m Brittany Winner, and I’m actually
Reality’s older sister. - My name’s Alison Grinter, and I am Reality’s
attorney for the commutation and pardon process. - And I'm Samantha Bee, a documentary filmmaker
who is tackling the story of Reality Winner, an NSA contractor who, unlike these bros,
you’ve probably never heard of… until now.
- As far as I can tell, Reality is being treated as an enemy of the state because the state
didn’t want there to be irrefutable, concrete, proof procured by our own intelligence agencies
that Russia did attempt to influence the 2016 election.
- Right. And because the president at the time was a big, dumb, stupid baby.
- Correct. It’s the United States of America vs. Reality Winner. It’s an unfair fight
from the beginning. - Dramatic recreations all played by me, Samantha
Bee. What is Reality like? - So, Reality is hilarious. Reality loved
going to CrossFit. She went probably daily, if not a couple times a week, to the CrossFit
gym and would frequently send me videos of her lifting these giant weights and meanwhile
I’m going, “Good job Reality!” - So she was a CrossFit fiend. It totally
makes sense that she ended up in the Air Force. What program was she in again?
- So Reality was part of a drone strike program. She would listen to conversations everyday
between people in Iran and in Afghanistan, and she actually helped identify terrorists
and take them out. My sister received a Commendation Medal for removing over a hundred enemies
from the battlefield. - Okay, where does a person go after being
part of the this-is-not-the-piece-to-talk-about-the-Obama-drone-program program?
- She decided to move to Augusta, Georgia to become an NSA contractor with a company
called Pluribus. - So, this was 2017. We had our worst nightmare
president, and America was knee-deep in p**** hats. Did Reality realize she could do more
than just knit? - When Reality heard that James Comey was
fired—because he did not completely absolve Trump publicly of colluding with Russia to
influence the 2016 presidential election—that activated her. And that actually pushed her
to do something. - Oh, s***! What did she do?
- So she went into work, and she sat down at her computer and saw the top-secret, classified
document that detailed the fact that the Russian GRU launched a spear-phishing campaign in
order to influence voting registration and records. After seeing the document and thinking
it over, Reality makes a decision. - So what were her motivations in that moment?
Like was she feeling righteous? Or vengeful? Or you know, just, was she scared? Or was
she feeling lustful? I have to say, these performances are extraordinary.
- Um, no. Sam, this is a really serious topic. - Got it. So she was speaking in a British
accent! - No. Still no.
- [British accent] ‘Ello! Look what we’ve got here! ‘Ello! ‘Ello! There’s a document!
I should send it to The Intercept! Something like that?
- No, because then everybody would have heard what she was saying and probably stopped her.
- Oh, yes. Yes, yes, you’re right. She didn’t say it out loud.
- So Reality makes a decision based on what’s going on in the world, and based on her own
sense of personal responsibility and morality. So she clicks print. She then walks over to
the printer and retrieves the document that she’s just printed. Next, she folds the
document and places it in her pantyhose. - Who even wears pantyhose? Is that a thing?
- That was my follow-up question. - Seriously.
- Thank you. - Anyway, and so she’s stuffed it into her
pantyhose and just walked out. - Once she had the papers out, she had to
figure out what to do with them. So she put the document into an envelope and mailed it
anonymously to the Intercept. - Why was printing the document and sending
it to The Intercept illegal? - It’s illegal to transmit classified information
to people without a security clearance. The Intercept actually thought it was some sort
of hoax, and so they sent a copy of it to the NSA, which is a huge no-no. The document
actually has identifying features on it. So as soon as the NSA saw the document, they
could tell immediately who had printed it. - Come on! So that’s it? That’s how they
caught her? - Correct.
- Can you tell me about the day that the FBI came to Reality’s house?
- So June 3, 2017 was a normal Saturday. And just as she was pulling into her driveway,
she was swarmed by 11 agents as she was exiting her car.
- And she is as casual-sounding as she possibly can be because as a person with a security
clearance, you don’t want to seem freaked out by law enforcement. They tell her that
they have some questions for her. - One of the first questions that they asked
her were “where are your weapons?” - What do you have?
- I have an AR-15. - Is it pink?
- It’s pink. - I also have a Glock 9 in the bedroom.
- Got it! - Ultimately, she admitted that she had printed
the intelligence assessment and sent it to The Intercept.
- So what was the outcome of the leak? - The leak of this document contributed directly
to the safest and most secure election ever in 2020. In fact, there were congressional
hearings where they used the information from the document that Reality leaked, and some
members of Congress actually brought up, “Hey, why didn’t we hear about these attacks to
our voting systems?” - There are states that would not have known
that they had been compromised but for the leak that Reality put in the press.
- That’s incredible. Did the government, like, thank her?
- Well… - She claimed to hate America. When asked,
“You don’t really hate America?” She responded, “I mean, yeah I do. It’s literally
the worst thing to happen on the planet.” She was the quintessential example of an insider
threat. - What the hell?
- If Reality wanted to do the country any kind of harm, she would have more efficiently
drawn upon all of the intelligence that she gathered when she was part of the drone program.
But instead, she took information that was valuable to us and gave it to us.
- Reality is a whistleblower, not an enemy of the state.
- Correct. - But they treated her like a spy?
- The government charged Reality with willful release of classified information under the
Espionage Act. - The Espionage Act of 1917?
- Correct. The Espionage Act of 1917. - Vintage!
- It was originally written to dissuade Americans from giving information over to the Germans
during WWI and WWII. Under the Espionage Act, Reality had no way of mounting any sort of
defense. - One important rule for charging somebody
with the Espionage Act is that whatever it is that they leaked, you can’t talk about
it. And so somebody who is in Reality’s position who would say, “Yeah, I did this,
but I did it for the good of the country. I did it to expose something people need to
know.” None of that can come in. None of it.
- So the intention was to create a chilling effect on anyone who wanted to leak anything.
- Correct. Reality was an example. - So Reality is like Robin Hood, but instead
of redistributing wealth, she was handing out democracy, yet she still remains in prison?
- Correct. When Joe Biden was elected—partly because of what Reality did—we expected
that we would be contacted immediately. We’ve submitted her clemency petition, and it’s
been a year now. So what we want people to do is to write a letter to President Joe Biden.
We want so many people to send letters that they’re going to be flying through the windows
and in the chimney of the White House. We want President Joe Biden to be inundated with
pleas for Reality’s release so that he can’t ignore us anymore.
- Jilly! Help! - And remember this documentary film when
awards season rolls around.