The US Federal Government has released Reality winner, the former NSA contractor who leaked information about Russia’s attempts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, from prison to supervised detention. The winner is currently at a residential reintegration management center in Texas, according to The independent.
“His release is not the product of the mercy or compassionate release process, but rather the time saved through exemplary behavior while incarcerated,” said Alison Grinter Allen, lawyer for Winner, said on twitter.
While Winner will likely end his sentence in November, his family are asking for a full pardon from President Joe Biden. “Reality has passed a lot of time and gone through quite a bit of trauma to essentially fight a man’s feelings about the validity of his election,” Allen said. The independent. “It’s the only way to make things right.”
Winner’s mother Billie Winner-Davis recently said MSNBC she has contacted the White House every day since President Joe Biden took office to try to get her daughter’s pardon. So far, she has only received a standard letter in response, informing her that another agency has taken up the matter.
“The Trump administration has persecuted Reality so severely because of the information it released. And this administration’s continued silence is continued persecution,” she told the network. “All it will take is [Biden’s] signature to commute her sentence and bring her home.
The US government arrested Winner in 2017 and sentenced her to five years and three months in prison, the longest sentence ever imposed on a person charged under the Espionage Act, after pleading guilty to sharing classified documents with the press. Much of the blame for Winner’s arrest has been attributed to Interception. The outlet journalists reportedly forwarded the original document Winner sent them to the government for validation. It included metadata that pointed authorities directly to Winner, which led to his arrest two days before. Interception published his report. The outlet has since admitted having mismanaged the situation.
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