ATLANTA _ The parent company of The Intercept online news outlet announced Tuesday that it is helping the legal defense of the Augusta suspect in the National Security Agency leak investigation. At the same time, The Intercept admitted some fault in Reality Winner's predicament.
"The ongoing criminal case prevents us from going into detail," Intercept Editor in Chief Betsy Reed wrote online Tuesday, "but I can state that, at several points in the editorial process, our practices fell short of the standards to which we hold ourselves for minimizing the risks of source exposure when handling anonymously provided materials."
The U.S. Justice Department has accused Winner of leaking to The Intercept a top-secret NSA report about Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election. The Intercept published the report, which says Russian military intelligence officials tried to hack into the U.S. voting system just before last November's election.
Owned by First Look Media, The Intercept provided federal officials a copy of the classified information, court records show. Investigators said the pages appeared "folded and/or creased, suggesting they had been printed and hand-carried out of a secured space." They quickly identified six people who had printed the materials, including Winner, and found she had email contact with the news agency.
A federal grand jury has indicted Winner, 25, on a single count of "willful retention and transmission of national defense information." She faces up to 10 years in prison and $250,000 in fines, plus up to three years of supervised release and a $100 special assessment. She has pleaded not guilty to the charge.
First Look's Press Freedom Defense Fund is helping pay for an additional law firm to support Winner. She is already being represented by the Augusta firm of Bell & Brigham. The Defense Fund is also providing $50,000 in matching funds to Stand with Reality, a nonprofit campaign to support Winner's case.
"Belief that it is wrong for journalistic sources to be prosecuted under the Espionage Act is the key principle that moved the Press Freedom Defense Fund to provide support for Winner's legal defense," Reed wrote Tuesday.
Announced Monday, the Stand with Reality campaign includes three co-founders: Jeff Paterson, project director of Courage to Resist, which assists military war resisters; Rainey Reitman, who leads the advocacy team for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group; and Trevor Timm, co-founder of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, which helps defend journalists' rights.
"We are concerned about Reality's case because it would chill investigative journalism to go after her with these really egregious charges," Reitman said, adding the leaked NSA document "belongs in the public view. It was important to understanding a larger political moment around our election and the security of that election and how and when outside forces could impact that."
"I certainly don't know if she leaked that document," Reitman continued, "but if she did she is a whistleblower and a hero and shouldn't be in prison. And I think a lot of people feel the same way."
James Durham, acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Georgia, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday afternoon.
A former Air Force linguist, Winner worked as a federal contractor at a U.S. government agency in Georgia this year and had a top-secret security clearance. Her trial has been set for Oct. 23 in Augusta.
Winner's defense attorneys, John Bell and Titus Nichols, did not respond to a request for comment Thursday afternoon. But a thank you note from Nichols is included on the Stand with Reality website.
"On behalf of Ms. Reality Winner, I want to thank you and others for the outpouring of support that you all have given to Ms. Winner during her current situation," it says. "It is refreshing to know that so many people that Ms. Winner has never known have come together to offer their support and prayers for her."
