NSA contractor gets more than 5 years for leaking info about Russia hacking attempts
A former government contractor who pleaded guilty to leaking U.S. secrets about Russia's attempts to hack the 2016 presidential election was sentenced Thursday to five years and three months in prison.
It was the sentence that prosecutors had recommended in the plea deal — the longest sentence ever given for a federal crime involving leaks to the news media — for Reality Winner, the Georgia woman at the center of the case. Winner was also sentenced to three years of supervised release.
The crime carried a maximum penalty of 10 years. U.S. District Court Judge J. Randal Hall in Augusta, Georgia, was not bound to follow the plea deal, but elected to give Winner the amount of time prosecutors requested.
Winner, 26, who contracted for the National Security Agency, pleaded guilty in June to copying a classified report that detailed the Russian government's efforts to penetrate a Florida-based voting software supplier.
U.S. intelligence agencies later confirmed Russia had meddled in the election. Authorities have never confirmed what exactly the report said, or identified the news organization that received it.
But a leaked document that was published by the online news outlet The Intercept in June 2017 bore the same May 5 date as the NSA report that Winner had leaked. The Justice Department announced it had arrested Winner on the same day as the Intercept report came out.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/nsa-contractor-gets-more-than-5-years-for-leaking-info-about-russia-hacking-attempts/ar-BBMl0Jg?li=BBnb7Kz
= new reply since forum marked as read
