AUGUSTA, Ga. (WJBF) – NewsChannel 6 spoke with Reality Winner’s attorney, Titus Nichols, who says the way this entire case went down to begin with is absurd.
He says when she was arrested at her home on Battle Row in Augusta Saturday, she was interrogated by police without an attorney present.
Nichols says right now his client has a case being built against her and he has yet to see any evidence of why she was arrested.
“We don’t know what exactly was in the document, if the document that is currently being circulated, if that’s the actual document.
There are still so many questions that surround the case of 25 year old Reality Leigh Winner. A contractor once assigned to the NSA at Fort Gordon, accused of leaking classified
documents about Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 election.
“The government says that there were 6 people that they thought had access to this document that was printed out. How they narrowed it down to Ms. Winner we still haven’t seen that evidence,” Nichols tells us. “We don’t even know who the other 5 people are nor have we had the chance to speak to them.”
Saturday, Winner was arrested at her home on Battle Row in Augusta. According to this affidavit, she admitted to intentionally identifying and printing the classified intelligence information with the knowledge that it was classified.
We asked, “So has she admitted to you that she did say that?”
“Like I said, I haven’t gone over the evidence because we haven’t been given it. So at this stage the only thing we have is a press release from the Deputy Attorney General and an application for a search warrant. In all my times as a prosecutor, that’s never been sufficient to either try a case or to even prepare for a case.”
Nichols says with the lack of evidence that he or his client have been provided, it’s clear to him that the government is trying to shape the narrative – framing Winner as a traitor.
“My client has no criminal history, she’s a veteran, she served in the air force for 6 years. But now she’s been pulled into this political windstorm where there is a much larger debate going on that this administration is choosing not to focus on. Instead of focusing on the question of was Russia involved with interfering with the election, now we’re focusing on whether or not, or the extent of punishment for this low level government employee.”
We’ve reached out to Pluribus International Corporation who Winner worked for – but have not heard back.
If she is convicted, she could face up to 10 years in prison.
For now she’ll remain behind bars here until her bond hearing in front of a federal judge this Thursday at 4 p.m.WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW BELOW
