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[0:00] Welcome to episode 11, The Fight for Clemency.

[0:08] With a world bearing witness to the terrorism of Vladimir Putin, it's important to revisit the case against highly decorated NSA Air Force linguist Reality Winner.

[0:20] In 2017, Reality was charged with leaking proof of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

[0:28] A fact we all now know to be true.

[0:32] When Reality exposed that truth to the American public, it was embarrassing to Trump because it put his victory in question.

[0:39] Calling Reality a terrorist and convicting her under the Espionage Act of 1917 was the Trump administration's way of saving face and burying the truth.

[0:50] Reality received the longest prison sentence ever imposed for the unauthorized release of government information.

[0:56] Five years and three months.

[1:18] And this is Reality.

[1:45] A United States citizen.

[1:46] She had had 25 odd years here in the United States, and she knew that leaks of information happen all the time.

[1:59] It's maybe one of the few backstops we have against tyranny when our legal system breaks down is that America is made up of Americans, and we have always treasured the right to the press.

[2:16] And the American government being just made of people has never been all that great at keeping secrets.

[2:23] And leaks happen all the time.

[2:28] Generals, cabinet secretaries, deputy assistants leak all the time.

[2:46] I think that of all of the people who were leaking in the early days of the Trump administration, Reality was chosen not only because what she leaked embarrassed the president, but also because she was a small enough fish that she could be made an example of with relatively low costs to the administration.

[3:08] Alison Grinter explains why in recent years we've seen more civilians like Reality become whistleblowers.

[3:16] But whistleblowers note that the system is full of nothing but disincentives, that it's that's all you'll ever get for your trouble is pain.

[3:26] But sometimes it has to be done.

[3:29] Sometimes it's worth it.

[3:30] I mean, when you train people to know and understand that they can be of service to their country and that their country needs them.

[3:40] That and when you grow a generation of smart and empathetic folks who want to serve their country and take their oath to the Constitution seriously, you're bound to get some whistleblowers because our country is the land and people of the United States.

[4:01] It's not a flag, it's not a picture, it's not an idea, and it's not just the government.

[4:08] It's the people and their rights to govern themselves.

[4:12] And that's why she took action.

[4:16] She was never interested in having her name associated with it.

[4:21] She just wanted the public to know.

[4:24] And it's interesting because this particular information, although not that exact intelligence assessment, but the particular information of the extent of Russian interference and what sectors were involved in the Russian attempt to subvert the election was already in the public sphere, although not highlighted.

[4:47] Obama had released an intelligence assessment at the very end of his presidency that was supposed to alert intelligence communities and the public to what the great threats were.

[5:04] But this was a long document.

[5:06] It was almost immediately buried by the incoming president.

[5:10] And there's a real question as to when this exact information became top secret and why.

[5:18] Because here we have information that belongs to the public.

[5:23] I believe that this information and the intelligence assessment were wrongly classified, were classified as top secret for political and not national security reasons.

[5:36] Reality leaked the document proving Russian interference in the 2016 election because she believed it was the only way to get this vital information to the American people to help protect democracy.

[5:47] I don't know of anyone who's ever gone through the proper channels and gotten a satisfactory solution.

[5:53] I don't think that's how it works, especially when you know that the proper channels involve informing people what they already know about.

[6:02] You know, I will forever take responsibility for what I did.

[6:06] I don't deny ever having done what I did or taking responsibility or regretting it.

[6:12] Alison explains why Reality's charges under the Espionage Act were so extreme.

[6:19] Unauthorized disclosure of information is another charge that could have been brought.

[6:25] It's a much less serious charge.

[6:28] And it is what leakers generally get charged with.

[6:32] However, beginning in the Obama administration, leaks to the press began to be charged under the Espionage Act of 1917.

[6:44] Previous to that, it was sort of an open question whether the public would tolerate prosecuting leaking under the Espionage Act.

[6:53] It fits the definition, but the Obama administration laid a fairly solid precedent that, yeah, the public will tolerate treating press leaks like stealing troop movements and turning them over to the Germans.

[7:08] I mean, the Espionage Act of 1917 created a crime for stealing, well, for disclosing top secret information, and it was intended to punish folks who did just that.

[7:24] And it created a unique legal situation surrounding that.

[7:30] People who disclose this information that in and of itself is so dangerous that it cannot be talked about, cannot say as a defense why they did it, cannot use an appeal to empathy or anything like that as a defense.

[7:48] That was meaningful because the folks who would betray state secrets and give them to the enemy do so almost always under tremendous duress.

[8:01] Maybe their family is being threatened.

[8:03] Maybe they think that they are going to be exposed as a homosexual to their community that's going to reject them and hate them, or think of any of the reasons that hostile foreign governments would use to exploit Americans to give secrets.

[8:20] So this law was created that would protect in a really wartime justice fashion really truly dangerous secrets.

[8:57] She won't be able to vote for several years, and in some states not at all, or serve on a jury.

[9:04] She will not be able to find apartments.

[9:08] She won't be able to carry a gun.

[9:17] And not being able to carry a gun means living in fear that if you're in the car and somebody you don't know has a gun and you get pulled over, you could go back to prison.

[9:29] Being a felon means being insecure forever about whether they will take you back to prison for reasons that you neither understand nor expect.

[9:41] Being a felon means not having just the general respect of a normal citizen.

[9:50] I mean, it creates a permanent underclass.

[9:53] That needs to be fixed for a lot of Americans, not just Reality Winner, but to put her in this category of almost less than human permanently in our legal system is a really sad state of how we treat the people who helped us when we needed it, who gave us the truth that we needed at the time that we needed it, even when it wasn't convenient or popular.

[10:21] She needs to be pardoned.

[10:22] It's the right thing to do.

[10:28] As of yet, no clemency or pardon has been granted.

[10:34] When I got involved with the petition for clemency and commutation, we were kind of in a different universe.

[10:41] We were appealing to the Trump administration and tiptoeing around the sensitivities and petty grievances and grudges that came with trying to get the attention and consideration of the Trump administration for any reason.

[11:01] We made outreaches to celebrities and people who were willing to say very complimentary things about the president whenever possible.

[11:12] We made we reached out to the president's ear.

[11:17] We really tried to frame it in a way that made him look good.

[11:21] There was a tweet when Reality was sentenced, because everything was about personal grievances.

[11:30] And Donald Trump was at that time dissatisfied with Jeff Sessions.

[11:36] So he said, oh, you know, this leaker, she's small potatoes.

[11:42] Nothing like what Hillary Clinton did.

[11:45] And so that was, I mean, that was the landscape, and that's what we had to work with.

[11:48] But now that we have a Biden administration, in a lot of ways we're a lot more hopeful for a pardon for Reality.

[11:59] Because we've got an administration that is willing to look reasonably at what's going on, that is willing to look at context and all of the things that were not able to be presented to a jury at the time.

[12:13] Generally, presidents pardon folks at the end of their term, but this is an issue that could bear a more urgent look because this is one of the very few issues that President Biden can handle solo and that can send a message.

[12:32] We are not gonna have political prisoners in the United States.

[12:37] We are not going to punish truth tellers because the truth is embarrassing.

[12:45] We are going to agree on a set of shared facts, and we're going to build a country that lives up to its values.

[12:55] Alison Grinter: And when we fall down, we fix it. I think that a pardon for Reality really sends an important message that Russia is not in control here anymore. And we are going to build the country back and heal the wounds that we've gone through. And that I think could be good for all of us, could be good for the country, not just Reality. The family has continued to fight for clemency. Under the Biden administration, Reality certainly has the chance to be treated with greater compassion and justice.

[13:51] Alison Grinter: And that's something that I truly want for Reality is to at some point in her life be 100% free. What the clemency petition asked for is a commutation of her sentence to basically say she's done. She served her time. She's no longer obligated under her sentence. She still has three years of supervision, supervised release, which is basically a federal probation. Clemency is asking for the president of the United States to end that for her. She has already served so much time. She has already been punished enough. And she's not a threat to society. So that's the thing too that I keep going back to. What is the purpose of all of this? The purpose is pure punishment. And you know, our criminal justice system says that no, they're in this for rehabilitation, for correction, for you know, to make the person better.

Well, this is not making Reality Winner better. This is just punishing her. Society is not in danger if Reality Winner goes free today. You know, the clemency petition is asking for just that, just end her sentence, and all of this, and all of the restrictions and conditions on her.

[15:11] Alison Grinter: A pardon would absolutely free her from the plea agreement. What Reality agreed to when she agreed to plead guilty is she agreed to a whole bunch of restrictions that will stick with her for the rest of her life. And that includes for the rest of her life, she can never talk about her work or her case. She can never talk about what she did, why she did it, how she did it, ever. She can ever, never ever talk about that. And I think that pardoning her, you know, releasing her from that agreement, those stipulations would be so important for not only for her, but for us, for America to hear from her, to hear about why she did what she did and just what led up to that and things like that.

[16:08] Alison Grinter: Reality's plea for clemency is not just about Reality, it's about ensuring the future of our democracy. Rep democracies all over the world, at least ostensibly, is that powerful people will never like truth and accountability. That's just that's never going to be something that the powerful embrace. And it's something that we really have to insist upon, not just once, but all the time. And we need to normalize appreciating whistleblowers and folks that bring us the truth, because without it, the powerful can just steamroll us. I mean, it you bring up companies and governments and and it's true in in politics and business and in all sorts of spheres of influence. It's just a factor of power to dislike accountability and truth. But that's why democracy is built. That's why we have a system where accountability is constant and always turning.

[17:28] Reality Winner: Yeah, so my goal is to do information campaigns for everyday people to understand the corporate interests in maintaining mass incarceration, and then also the common sense approach that putting people in jail is not making society safer. Um, and then trying to find a way to then turn that into an economic action campaign. So we know that boycotts work. Using that to lower the stocks of these large corporations that may have commercial products that we use every single day, that are also making bank off of having millions of bodies in prisons and jails across this country every day, and making sure that it is a feasible boycott that everyday Americans can use their buying power to send a message to our Congress about because a lot of these corporations are then lobbying Congress to make sure that legislation remains in place that makes mass incarceration feasible. So that will be probably one of my large-scale projects to take on over the next couple of years.

[18:43] Reality Winner: And then on the small scale, what I hope to do is just within the community is to have a nonprofit that brings CrossFit memberships at a discounted rate, or also just covering CrossFit memberships for at-risk youth, and to basically remove the privilege of engaging in sport and giving them somewhere to be after school, giving them something that's really going to take up most of their time and energy in a positive way, and hopefully, even bring in like a family member, whoever's giving them a ride. And that could be the difference between them just being unoccupied and falling into a juvenile delinquency system, or not.

[19:28] Alison Grinter: Reality's commitment to prison reform advocacy has already inspired many. Reality is kind of unusual as my clients go, uh, start to finish. But her time in prison, the conditions that she was forced to go through, the treatment that she received in prison, and her experience being um dehumanized and demoralized is not uncommon. And I love that Reality has shown some light and and really wants to keep shining some light on the fact that ultimately in the scheme of things, she's really not special. And what she went through, so many other women and so many men have gone through as well. And change has to be made because our prison system is causing trauma, not solving it. Real structural change has to take place.

You know, we have three percent of the world's population and 26% of the world's prisoners. And if we could incarcerate our ways to safety, we'd be the safest place in the world right now. And we just it's not working. And somebody needs to say, stop, this isn't working. And Reality is committed to that, and that's one of the many things I love about her.

[21:06] Reality Winner: I've learned a lot over the last four and a half years. And the truth is that the greatest threat to our democracy is domestic. It's voter suppression based on race and it's gerrymandering. Because America is founded on the original sin of slavery, and that American slavery in particular was the only slave trade that was then bolstered. Racism was invented to perpetuate the American slave trade well beyond Europe had ended their slave trade. This subconscious desire of white America to retain the status quo, if you read authors like Ta-Nehisi Coates or Ibram X. Kendi to understand that there is something very deep at play to maintain the same exact status quo that existed in the 1800s in the 2020s, and that it doesn't take another country to exacerbate the worst of us when the worst of us has always been here.

[22:41] Wendy Collins: The messaging and what America needs to know is that Reality Winner has a very long road ahead. She will face three years of probation with lifetime restrictions without presidential intervention, because her plea agreement that she was forced to sign to survive will still stand. Contact the pardon attorney directly. You can go to whitehouse.gov. You can check my Twitter at WendyMeir M E R 11. And my Twitter is devoted to Reality Winner. And the pardon attorney information, email, phone number, and mailing address is there. What we need for people to do is to contact this administration and let them know that Reality Winner needs for this sentence to be over, including her probation period through clemency. That would be a great start, but a pardon is what she needs to be truly free.

[24:12] Host: Please join us for the next episode of This Is Reality, and make sure to check out all the podcasts on the Broadway Podcast Network. We're incredibly grateful to special guests Reality Winner, Billie Winner-Davis, Brittany Davis, Alison Grinter, and Wendy Collins. Reality's interrogation by the FBI was captured in the critically acclaimed Broadway show, Is This a Room? conceived and directed by Tina Satter. This podcast is created, written, and produced by Dori Berinstein, Sally Horchow, Rebecca Aparicio, and the Broadway Podcast Network. Sound engineers are Alan Seales and Kimberly Garris. Podcast editor is Alan Seales. Executive producer is Liz Armstrong. This is Reality is part of the Gotham's Fiscal Sponsorship Program under the Sound and Light Project.

Please join us for our next episode of This Is Reality by following and finding out more information on BPN.fm/ThisIsReality. And finally, special thanks to Bea Westby, Ayana Prescott, and the rest of the team at the Broadway Podcast Network.