Add Category
Updated
A US intelligence contractor has been charged with leaking classified National Security Agency material about Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
- The charges were announced after The Intercept published an NSA document
- It details Russian efforts to launch cyber attacks on US voting software suppliers
- Intercept co-founder Glenn Greenwald has not responded for comment
The US Justice Department charged Reality Leigh Winner, 25, with removing classified material from a government facility in Georgia.
It said she was arrested on Saturday.
It was one of the first concrete efforts by the administration of US President Donald Trump to crack down on leaks to the media.
The charges were announced less than an hour after The Intercept news site published a top-secret document from the NSA.
The document described Russian efforts to launch cyber attacks on at least one US voting software supplier — sending "spear-phishing" emails that try to trick a recipient into clicking on a malicious link to steal data — to more than 100 local election officials days before the November 8 US election.
While the charges do not name the publication, a US official with knowledge of the case said Winner was charged with leaking the NSA report to The Intercept. A second US official confirmed The Intercept document was authentic and did not dispute that the charges were directly tied to it.
The Justice Department has declined to comment on the case beyond its filing. The FBI and Winner's mother did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Intercept report carried details it said supported the conclusion of US intelligence agencies that Russian intelligence services were seeking to infiltrate state voter registration systems.
It described the attempts as part of a broader effort to interfere in the election, discredit Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and help Mr Trump win the election.
The new material however does not suggest that actual votes were manipulated.
The Intercept co-founding editor Glenn Greenwald did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Winner reportedly graduated from basic military training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio in 2011.
Investigators have determined she was one of only six individuals to print the document in question and that she had exchanged emails with the news outlet, according to the criminal complaint.
The complaint said Winner told an FBI agent she had intentionally printed classified intelligence and mailed it to a news organisation while knowing "the contents of the reporting could be used to the injury of the United States and to the advantage of a foreign nation".
US intelligence agencies including the NSA and Central Intelligence Agency have fallen victim to several thefts of classified material in recent years, often at the hands of a federal contractor.
In 2013 former NSA contractor Edward Snowden disclosed secret documents to journalists, including Greenwald, lifting the lid on broad US surveillance programs.
Reuters
Topics: world-politics, security-intelligence, courts-and-trials, united-states
First posted