AUGUSTA, Ga. — A woman charged with leaking U.S. secrets has lost an appeal of a federal magistrate’s order that she remain jailed until trial.
U.S. District Court Judge J. Randal Hall ruled Monday the lower court correctly decided in October that releasing 25-year-old Reality Winner on bail would risk “harm to national security.”
Winner is a former Air Force linguist who worked as a National Security Agency contractor in Augusta, Georgia, when she was charged in June with leaking a classified U.S. report to an unidentified news organization.
Authorities haven’t described the document. Winner’s arrest was announced the same day The Intercept reported on a classified NSA report on Russian hackers and the 2016 election.
Winner’s lawyers argued she served admirably in the military and was only charged with one criminal count.
