Winner, aged 26, was arrested in June 2017 and has spent more than a year in jail already while prosecutors built a case. She pleaded guilty in June 2018 to a felony count charge for the unauthorized transmission of national defense information about Russian interference in the build-up to the 2016 election to an online news outlet agency – The Intercept.

Winner confessed to leaking the top-secret report when FBI agents questioned her at her home in June 2017. She stated that she did it because she was frustrated at work. She confessed that she printed a “sources and method” report from her work computer that detailed hacking attacks of Florida-based voting registration software and accounts of local election officials by Russian intelligence service, prior to the 2016 presidential election.

She later told FBI agents that she smuggled the classified documents out of the Augusta, Georgia facility of NSA contractor – Pluribus International, in her underwear and then mailed it to The Intercept. Following a trail of investigation, the F.B.I. soon arrested Winner two days before The Intercept published the top-secret information.

Addressing the chief prosecutor – Chief Judge Randall Hall in court the day of her sentencing, Winner apologized and said she takes “full responsibility” for the “silly, undeniable mistake I made.”

Yeah, I screwed up royally,” Winner told the prosecutors.

I would like to apologize profusely for my actions. I want to apologize to my family. Nothing is worth time spent away from loved ones, she said.

Winner would be the first person since the inauguration of President Trump to be sentenced under the Espionage Act. Prosecutors stressed that her actions merited a stiff sentence. Winner’s sentence is the longest sentence ever imposed in a federal court for the unauthorized transmission of national security information to the media.

Winner was recruited by the Air Force after graduating from high school in Kingsville, Texas. Her parents said she became a professional linguist, speaking Farsi and Arabic. She spent 4 years at a facility in Fort Mead, Maryland. Around that time, Winner provided real time translation to American investigators conducting field missions.

After leaving the military, Winner soon got a civilian contract job with the NSA and was transferred to Augusta at a $286 million complex where the NSA had operated since 2012. Court records show that Winner translated classified information from Farsi to English for the security agency.

Prosecutors later used the 77-page transcript of her FBI interview as part of the court file in her case. Despite warnings from prosecutors that Winner might have stolen other US top-secrets, she was never charged for any additional crimes.

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