July 4, 2023 • 55 mins
In 2018, Rosie heard about a case involving a woman named Reality Winner, who was arrested and charged with sending a classified document anonymously to the news outlet The Intercept. The leaked document confirmed Russian interference in the 2016 election. In the immediate aftermath of her arrest, Winner was vilified in the press and by the sitting president and his administration. And that propelled Rosie to work even harder to find out the truth. After Rosie eventually connected with Winner's mother, and then Winner herself, a friendship of trust and support blossomed between all 3 of them. Now, with Winner out of jail —though still under the terms of parole and house arrest, Winner and Rosie share a conversation to help clarify what really went on and why.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Well, hello everybody. It is me Rosie O'Donnell, Star of
Wide Awake, which is a film you probably never saw
that I was in playing a nun, but people were
sick of me saying Star the Flintstones. But frankly it
rolls off my tongue in a way that I enjoy.
How are you. I'm doing good. You're getting ready for
your big Fourth of July extravaganza, having a few people
(00:33):
over here, little pool party. It's going to be fun.
I had a wonderful time last night. I took my
daughter Vivian, and my son Blakey and his fiance Teresa,
and Vivi's friend Erica to see Logic Bobby Hall, who
is one of the greatest rappers in the world, and
(00:54):
you all probably know who he is. He did an
episode of the podcast and I just fell in love
with the guy. He is so wonderfully optimistic. He's full
of positivity, he's full of patience, he's full of pathos
and just perfection, you know. And I got to tell
you he did something that made me cry last night.
(01:14):
He was introducing people who were in the audience and
who had really inspired him in his work and his life.
As a creative performer. And then he said, you know
who's here, Rosie O'Donnell, And he told the whole story
about how we met at NOBU and the whole synchronicity
of us sort of getting into each other's lives, and
(01:37):
he was so lovely and made me stand up and
the crowd all clapped and he was like, what she's
done as a gay woman at a time when it
wasn't easy, And I just love that guy, I gotta
tell you. I started to cry, you know, And then
walking out, everyone's like, Rosie, hey, Rosie, love you man.
Thanks what you do hey, Rosie?
Speaker 2 (01:57):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
So it was a lovely not just because of that,
but boy was that the icing on a very delicious cake.
I loved every minute of it to listen Today's guest,
and today's show is a little different than what we
normally do. There's a couple of issues we talk about
with my guest about self abuse, self harm, about drug addiction,
(02:20):
and about her life in prison. And it's just an
emotional trigger warning for people if you have issues with
these kinds of things. I want to give you a
heads up. Pretty amazing guest that I have today and
her name is Reality Winner. First of all, isn't that
name something? I mean? Reality Winner is her actual name,
(02:44):
And it was years ago when she got arrested and
I saw the charges and what they were trying to
do to her as a result of being a whistleblower.
Reality Winner was a high ranking member of the Air
Force assigned to the drone program. She intercepted foreign chatter
to provide US forces with intelligence. She was awarded the
(03:04):
Air Force Commendation Medal for aiding and six hundred and
fifty enemy captures and identifying nine hundred high value targets.
She left the Air Force and became an NSSA translator
and then a top security Clearance military contractor, during which
time Reality downloaded an article from the NSSAY that talked
(03:24):
about how the Russians fished many registered electors through email
and interfered with the twenty sixteen elections. There was strong
evidence that Russian hackers had manipulated and influenced voters through
well planned strategies and experimental software techniques, but she realized
that none of this was available to the public domain.
(03:46):
No one knew. She said she felt a responsibility as
a citizen that it was her duty to leak the
document in good faith. She downloaded the article, she printed it,
folded it in half, put it in her paneos, and
took it out of the building undetected. She sent the
article by mail anonymously to the Intercept. They sent copies
of the documents to the NSA to confirm their accuracy,
(04:08):
and the NSA notified the FBI. The FBI obtained a
warrant to search winners electronic devices and home, and she
was eventually arrested. She was charged with one act under
the hardly used Espionage Act of nineteen seventeen, and she
pled not guilty. Blocked from being allowed to use bail twice,
Winner asked the court to allow her to change or
(04:30):
plead it guilty because as she tried to defend herself,
they kept adding time to her jail sentence. Winner then
pleaded guilty to one count of felony transmission of national
defense information under the Espionage Act of nineteen seventeen as
she sat in jail. A larger conversation surrounding Russian interference
in the twenty sixteen elections, allegations of collusion between the
(04:53):
Trump campaign and Russia, and the role of whistleblowers in
American society was started, mostly went unreported, and now here
we are July twenty twenty three, and the ongoing investigation
into Trump's alleged misuse of classified documents. He's been charged
with thirty seven charges, specifically thirty one violations of the
(05:15):
Espionage Act of nineteen seventeen, the very same law that
Trump and AG Jeff Sessions used to charge Reality Winner
and make an example out of her, to jail her
for nearly five years, the longest time anyone ever spent
in jail charged with that crime, and he is now
charged with thirty something counts of that exact crime. I
(05:38):
think it's karma. I really do. I believe in Reality Winner.
I've known her for four years now. We kept in
touch through her mom and through letters and texts and emails,
and I think she's a national hero. And what she
did was vitally important. At a time when the American
(06:00):
news media did not feel any allegiance to the truth.
She stood up and said, well, here's the truth, and
here's the facts, and here's the proof, and good for her,
here she is Reality Winner. Well, hello, Reality Winner, Hi Rosie.
(06:27):
I'm so happy to talk to you. I'm so happy
to see you. I'm so happy to see you are
out of prison and you look well.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
I'm just happy to be here. I'm happy for your support,
and I just I'm so grateful for you. First of all,
if I could just interrupt and say that, like when
you came out of the woodworks and express support to
my mother, Yes, I can't even describe the amount of
hope that you gave her in those moments when I
was in jail, and I just, I mean, that's everything
(06:58):
to me. People who are there for my mom when
I can't be.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
I can understand. Well, it was interesting. I had heard
the story on the news, and I went and googled it,
and it was like, is this her real name? Reality winner?
And to go up against the Trump administration who was
a reality host. Like I just thought, oh my god,
this is like epic and Shakespearean and this isn't an accident.
(07:23):
Pay attention, you know. And I called your mom and
she was so lovely and so obviously concerned and worried.
I think that was before she moved down to where
you were in prison, right.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Yeah, So that was at the beginning when we were
just trying to figure, what do you do when you're
in the system.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Yes, so Reality Winner, for those of you who don't know,
is an American hero. She worked for the government. She
was in the Air Force, and she did translations of
Arabic languages.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Correct, they're written in the Arabic alphabet, but they're Farce
Dory and Pashto.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
And how did you learn those three languages? They don't
seem so easy.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
They kind of beat them into you. In the military.
You go to the Defense Language Institute, which is like
the Hogwarts for languages.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Wow. Did you have a natural talent for foreign languages
when you were a kid or was this something that
you wanted to do to sort of help the country
prevent terrorist attacks.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
I think it's a little bit of both. I really
wanted it so badly when I was a kid. I
used to trace the Arabic alphabet to show my dad,
and I would draw maps of Afghanistan. He was like
everybody else, just trying to figure out what exactly happened
on nine to eleven. And in high school, I remember
taking Latin and just being obsessed with it as like
(08:48):
a groundwork for how to learn other languages because it's so.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Structured yeah, and you were obviously quite good at it,
I hope. So, yeah, Well you got lots of accommodations
while you were serving in the Air Force. What was
the big medal that they show in the dock that
I saw that you got a medal for outstanding performance
or something similar?
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Right? And I guess at one time I was the
only person pretty much in the Air Force that had
perfect scores in three separate languages.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Wow, that's pretty big. Did you always want to serve
for your country? Did? How old were you when you
decided to go into the Air Force?
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Well, I was seventeen when I walked into the Army
recruiter's office and my parents had to stage an entire intervention.
They threatened to call my stepbrother who was in the
Air Force, and they said, you know, sweetie, like you're
too smart for this. You need to go into the
Air Force. And the Air Force's attitude was kind of
(09:51):
like in Ivy League college, like we'll talk to you
once you've met the requirement. And I didn't really appreciate that.
When I was seventeen, I wanted just to be taken in,
but I had always wanted to be involved in the
international geopolitical atmosphere that had basically become the world after
(10:13):
nine to eleven. Yes, it was like the only thing
I had as a child to keep my dad's attention.
You know, he was a psychologist and a theologist. So
what happened that day was became his next obsession of
how you can use a faith in such a toxic way? Right? Right?
Speaker 1 (10:35):
How old were you in back then nine to eleven?
Speaker 2 (10:39):
I was almost I was almost ten years old. Yeah,
I was nine.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Yeah, So it totally colored your whole childhood and possibly
your desire to go in and help this specific area
in chaos, right, and.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Especially I think that as a young girl growing up
in South Texas, our views of the war in Iraq
and afghanis to stand. There really weren't a lot of
question marks. You know. There's so many people that ask me, really,
you you wanted to help people, why would you join
the military? And for me, that was the quickest way
(11:13):
to get to a job where you're helping people.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Right, And did you think about going to college as well?
Or you thought you would just join right then? Out
of high school?
Speaker 2 (11:23):
I actually was pretty much set up to go to
college for mechanical engineering and My thought was to be
like a big successful aircraft mechanic, so that I would
make enough money to learn these languages, to be a
philanthropist and do everything in support of this country and
(11:44):
counter terrorism and humanitarian aid. But after like ten years
of you know, college and work instead of doing it
right off the bat, just with a service uniform on.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Right, So it was a quicker route to get to
ways you wanted to.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Yes, my step brother Cole was a linguist in the
Air Force, and so that's how I knew that there
was a language school in the United States that could
get you fluent in any language in the world within
a year. And once I found that out, I pretty much,
you know, whatever it took, I was going to get there.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
We'll be back right after this more with Reality Winner,
don't go away. Now. You worked listening in to conversations
(12:52):
of people in Iraq and Afghanistan and then reporting what
you heard, and then as a result, there would be
drone strikes from some of your things that you learned
from listening in and from translating correct.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
I'm not allowed to get that specific, but generally that
is how the war in Afghanistan was carried out.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Okay, And eventually the statistics and all of the facts
that you knew about what was happening with this particular
line of work and line of defense that the United
States government was using resulted in a lot of casualties
that were not necessarily the targets, and that weighed on
(13:36):
you very heavily. Tell me if you can't say it
reality and we'll skip, because I'm not trying to get
you in trouble. I'm trying to understand your mental state.
When you decided I can't do this anymore, I might
want to switch over to something else.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Right, I realized that what we were doing was the
greatest recruitment tool for insurgent groups like the Taliban, ISIS
and al Qaida.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Right, So it didn't it didn't sit well in your soul.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
No, it didn't feel good that I was becoming part
of the problem that I made it my life's mission
to solve.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
So you made a switch at that time after ten
years in the Air Force.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
So I did six years in the Air Force, and
I realized about a month before my separation that none
of my language training and experience meant anything to like
the un human refugees Council unis usaid I wasn't even
qualified to pass out blankets at a refugee camp. You
(14:40):
needed at least a master's degree, and you had to
be self sufficient and have enough money saved up to
live by yourself in country for a year doing unpaid labor.
I realized the ugly side of humanitarian aid is that
it's very much paid a play and nothing I had
was good enough to even apply.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
So I said, I'm not going to go to college
for four or five years. I'm going to stay working
and I'm going to get a year of in country
work expertise with a defense contract. So I started just
taking any defense contract as a way of jumping from
(15:23):
contract to contract, keeping a top secret clearance to get
a deployment to Afghanistan for one year. So I could
then take that to the UN or any other refugee
agency and say I worked as an interpreter in Afghanistan
for a year. May I work for you to help
(15:43):
refugees find their family members.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Right?
Speaker 2 (15:47):
So that is how I wound up at NSA Georgia.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Got it so you didn't get to go in country
for a year, right, I did not.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
I hadn't quite gotten that far before committing a felony
because I was just so dissatisfied with the state of Mali,
the country in general, but just my life, you know
it just being at that transition stage and having come
so far and not being any closer to the humanitarian
(16:17):
aid career I thought I would have by twenty five, Right,
It just really led me down a dark path in
my life.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Right. And you suffered with depression while you were in
the Air Force, and anxiety, and you had an eating disorder,
right all starting way back then or did only start
after you you got the new job in Georgia.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Yeah, the eating disorder had pretty much always been there
since childhood, right, and it's been I mean, there's years
of my Air Force service that I don't remember except
for what I did to avoid binging and purging.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Yes, I understand.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
I don't remember anything from the year twenty fourteen, except
I can't anything other than alvocado on wheatbread. I think
I ate that for a year straight, right, Like in
other words, I was pretty much ready for prison, right.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Yeah, you were the same. You were kind of getting
up up there, getting your your taste. Bud's ready at
least so you go to work exactly, you go to
work in Georgia, and it's at the time when there's
a lot of concern in the United States that Russia
has interfered in our elections. And the president at the
time was telling, no, that's never happened. I don't have
(17:30):
anything to do with Russia. They did not at all
help me win. They didn't help anything. And there you are,
with your top secret clearance looking at all of these
forms and of information and top secret material, and something
comes across your desks that confirms Russia's involvement in the election.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
I can't confirm any of that, but what I can
say is that there was a game going on in
twenty seventeen, and the you know, the punching bag of
the whole situation were United States institutions. It was the NSA.
And what I didn't hear was my agency speaking for itself. Right,
(18:14):
So I jumped rink and I tried to speak for
my entire agency, and in doing so, I committed a felony.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Yes, and the felony was printing out one article, yes,
one article, and when the publisher of the person you
sent it to the intercept right, when when they I
don't know if you can confirm that either. I don't
know what I'm allowed to say. Please stop me reality,
because I don't want to get you in trouble. Right,
So you send this away and a few weeks later
(18:43):
it's published, and then you're at your house coming home
from the grocery store and there's somebody at your house
where your dogs and your cat and your life.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Is it actually and you even believe it gets uglier
than that?
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Please?
Speaker 2 (18:57):
So the intercept, the intercept saw it said, you know,
we're going to send it straight back to the NSA
to confirm that it's real, and in doing so leads
the FBI directly to my footsteps and waits until it's
confirmed that I'm in custody to then publish the document
(19:19):
one hour before the Department of Justice makes a public
announcement of my arrest.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Yes, so they held onto it, and so you tell
me if they knew if I was in custody yet
or not. But they had that document for two and
a half, almost three weeks, and they just happened to
publish it Monday morning. I think it was like fifty
three minutes before the district attorney for the Southern District
(19:47):
of Georgia announced my arrest.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
And we have all seen with the new wonderful reenactment
of the actual interrogation that was recorded by the FBI.
We saw that in Is This a Room? The play
that I went to see about it on Broadway Off Broadway,
which was astounding and amazing, and then this sort of
take off on that the whole interrogation of what went
(20:12):
down in real time, of how long it took in
a live show. It was absolutely riveting. And it's on
now as well. What network is that on? Do you
remember HBO?
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Max?
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Yes? Okay, so let's gauge this your anxiety. When they're
all talking to you, they're asking questions, they're saying did
you take anything out? They're being kind of weird around you,
I would say, and you are spinning your wheels trying
to think what do I do? Did you at any
time think I should call my lawyer?
Speaker 2 (20:43):
I didn't have a lawyer. I did not know which
law I had broken yet. I might be the dumbest
person ever, but I guess when it comes to this
sort of crime, it was such a stigma, the look
a snowed in or manning or to understand their actual
(21:04):
legal proceedings against them. Yes, so I knew I had
done something really terribly against the rules, probably against the laws.
I did not know that it was actually under the
Espionage Act in nineteen.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Seventeen, which no case had been tried under that Act
for a very long time. Is that true?
Speaker 2 (21:23):
There have been several in the past twenty years, and
then they tried to do that to Daniel Ellsberg. But
it's very rarely used, but when it is, there is
almost zero legal defense against it.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
A question that a lot of people have from watching
the doc infote sort of what would we call it.
It's not really a doc. It's acted out, but it's
the performed interrogation of you, and it's fascinating, absolutely compelling
to watch, and that you were never given your miranda
rights or told you were under arrest right.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Exactly several times outside of the recording, I had asked
if I was under arrest, they said, we don't know yet.
I had seen communications with those agents from the night
before Friday night. They were supposed to go and immediately
arrest me and then search my house. On Saturday morning,
(22:20):
they had called off the arrest, but they said, you know,
perform the warrant for me. The only thing I knew
was that when Chelsea Manning was taken, she was disappeared
for seven months in solitary confinement on a Marine Corps
base up by DC. So when they wouldn't tell me
(22:43):
if I was under a rest orant, when they weren't
making it sound like this was a interaction with law enforcement,
when they did not act like police officers, I thought
there was going to be some extra judicial bullshit going on.
I knew I was going to disappear that night if
I survived, because they weren't acting like police officers and
(23:08):
they didn't say jail. It wasn't until the female police
officer showed up and said, Hi, I'm going to be
the one taking you to jail tonight. That was the
closest time somebody had said Reality Winner, you are under arrest.
When agent Garrick, the one in the film said you're
(23:29):
under arrest, he didn't say that. He said, yeah, we're
going to have to take you in. It's going to
be a bit of a drive, Like what the fuck
does that mean?
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (23:38):
And legally what does that mean?
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Correct? And you probably were thinking, you know, they're going
to take me somewhere and maybe not going to be
seen again.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I mean, when you're in my line of work and
you understand black sites, and you understand that once you're
on that side of the law, you know it's not
a uniform police, it is the FBI. They can take
you anywhere, you don't have to under arrest. And apparently,
and one of the things that it's so weird in
(24:05):
this film is at any point in time, according to
those FBI agents and according to the court, that girl
in the film is free to walk away at any time,
even though they parked her core in, even though her
car keys and her wallet are inside the house wile
a warrant is being executed, she is free to say,
(24:26):
excuse me, go grab her keys in her wallet, somehow
drive away and not be followed. That is their legal
justification for not reading me.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
My Randa rites, well, that is absolutely absurd. As you
can see from the film and also from the play.
If you read the actual interrogation, you were completely trapped
and they were kind of cat and mousing you, it
seemed right, with ridiculously sexist questions like you know, where's
your gun? Is it pink? Like? What was that about
(24:57):
do you know what I mean, Like, as I'm watching this,
I'm thinking, what third question to ask somebody who has
been in the military and has obviously the wherewithal an
ability to use these weapons, And you know, I just
felt like it was so kind of infantalizing or misogynistic.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
I set myself up for that one though, because my
gun was pink.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Right, But that's okay. I don't care what color it is,
you know.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
I mean, you know which gun were they talking about?
My shotgun wasn't pink, My glock wasn't pink. But yeah,
I mean the way the certain questions being tagged on
at the end of everything, I mean, it's certainly not
an orthodox you know situations. It was very strange.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
It was hinky, as they say in police work. It
was hinky. We'll be right back after this with more
with reality winner Where were you taken that night? And
(26:08):
did you get to call your mother? And when I did.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
So, thankfully, when I was rescued by the police and
taken to a regular jail where my whereabouts were documented,
I made a collect call. I tried to call my
sister first, and she didn't answer, so I called my
mother and I It's so weird because I was able
to call her once and then what happens to people
(26:32):
when we incarcerate them. It was a Saturday night, and
they told me that they don't give out individual personal
phone pin numbers except for Tuesdays.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
So I got my free phone call and was told
to go back to the cell block with the other
women and good luck.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
These were the women charged with a variety of crimes,
none having to do with national security. You're the only
one there, like you, okay, yeah, and you're terrified. You've
never been in the situation before. You don't, really, this
is not something that you ever thought would happen to
you in your life, correct, right?
Speaker 2 (27:07):
I mean, yeah, it's not something i'd ever prepared myself for.
I think I was more prepared for the solitary kind
affinement at Quantico than I was to be with normal
American citizens in a county jail.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
So what did your mother say? What was her reaction?
Were you able to in that short phone call tell
her the gist of it? Did she understand?
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Yes? Actually, it was the second time on record that
I confess to my felony. Because I am not the mastermind.
They thought I was right, and I needed her to
understand kind of what I did. You know what I mean, like,
what do you do when you're in jail, Like, Mom,
I'm in jail. Don't worry. I didn't kill nobody, right,
you know. And I just really thought that this would
(27:52):
be I thought I would have a legal chance. I
thought I would get out on bail. I thought I
would have a chance to find an attorney. I thought
this would be a misunderstanding that might end my career,
but not possibly my entire life. Right by that Thursday,
we realized exactly what we were up against.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
And terror filled you. Yes, you were sentenced to prison
for releasing a piece of paper or three that told
the truth about Russia's interference in our elections. And Donald
Trump did not want that anywhere out in the public,
(28:32):
and Jeff Sessions, his ag threw the book at you.
You were serving more time, and you had a longer
sentence than people who had broken that law and done
so much more damage to the country and whatnot, and
they were given less time. You were made an example
of right.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
And I was the only person in history ever denied
bail for this act, the only other person and kept
in custody was an actual Cuban spy. Ana Montes.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Now, when they said you're sentenced to five years, did
you think you would be doing all five years?
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Absolutely? I was ready to plead guilty on day one,
having already confessed. I did not hide behind what I
had done. It was after a few months of realizing that.
So if you kill somebody, you get the option to
say I didn't mean to, it was an accident, or
(29:34):
I was under the influence of something or self defense, right,
and then it gets what downgrade it to manslaughter or
anything else. When it comes to the Espiono Jack in
nineteen seventeen, you did the thing or you didn't. It
is the only law in the United States law where
your criminal men's raya or your criminal intent does not matter.
(29:55):
The actual harm done to national security does not matter.
And I was not indicted for releasing classified information. I
was indicted for releasing national defense information. This law is
one hundred and five years old. Today there is no
legal definition of what national defense information even is. When
(30:19):
the law was written, it meant locations of submarines and
troop movements, as well as attack plans. It was a
World War One law and since then, they've intentionally left
it vague, so we could mean anything. Once a district
attorney and a grand jury has made the decision that
(30:40):
what has been willfully retained and then disseminated is national
defense information, a defendant no longer has the right to
even question if what they leaked or had or passed
on or retained even is national defense information. The government
does not have to prove that damage was done. It's
(31:03):
if you did it, you're facing ten years, and if
you didn't, you need to prove that you did it.
It's one of the few laws where the burden of
proof actually lies in the defendant and not the prosecution.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Wow, did you have anybody like the ACLU or some
pro bono lawyer fighting for truth and journalism and you
know it's whistleblower stuff. Did you think, well, maybe this
is a whistleblower thing, Maybe I could use that defense.
But you weren't even really given a chance to have
a defense because of the archaic nature of the law.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Exactly, and even from the get go, my public defenders
were taken away from me because I was twenty five
years old and I had thirty thousand dollars in savings,
from the Air Force, so obviously I could get a
top notch legal defense going after a couple months. The
Intercept was underneath a media corporation who reached out to
(32:01):
the Freedom of the Press Foundation, who then decided that
they would take on my case pro bono. However, at
every time I was reminded by those attorneys that the
Freedom of the Press was hired by the Intercept to
pay for my legal defense. So at no time was
(32:25):
I the client. Was my defense the most important thing?
It was keeping the Intercept out of court.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Well, that's duplicitus. That's very duplicitous, isn't it, That they're
not really representing you at all?
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Right, And I had my I actually retained my public defenders.
They said, we're here for you. We will stay on
for free. And they were the ones that explained that
all of that to me. They said, go with these people.
They have an entire law firm. I mean I'd had
like nine different attorneys from them. They said, they're the
(33:00):
only chance you have at having just the manpower to
fight this at all if you want a fighting chance,
or if you want a good plea deal. But we
need you to know that they're protecting the person paying
the bill right, and you're not paying the bill right.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
So it's never a pretty picture. But I was also
I was very privileged, very fortunate, and those attorneys are
some of the most I mean, the integrity that they had,
the compassion that they had. I'm still in touch with
them today. Joe Whitley is just one of the finest
humans I've ever met.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Oh how great. And he was there for you the
whole time, yes.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Even now. I mean just the way he's reached out
since then. I mean, this has just been a way
of accumulating people within my life, just amazing people.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Who just show up and stand by you exactly.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
I mean, it's the greatest gift ever.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Yes, I imagine that it is, especially when you are
spread all over the news in a very short timeframe.
Was like you were arrested. It was out there, and
then it kind of wasn't on the news. And whenever
I would be at anything, I was at some protests
about the former president who was in office, and I
(34:20):
was there and I was interviewed, and I would always say,
what about reality winner, Why aren't you talking about how
Jeff Session use this as the personal get back person,
you know, to get back at you for telling the truth,
and you're a woman, and he likes to do it
to women, and he likes to think women are less
than them, And so he used everything within his means
(34:42):
as the president of the United States to suppress the
story after you were arrested, and then to not have
mainstream media really pick it up anywhere.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
I think they realized that I'm not like a crazy,
unique person, but there are too many things about me
that people can identify with. Everybody kind of knows somebody
kind of like me, or somebody who's thirty or when
I was twenty five at the time, it was like
I felt like I embody my generation. And there were
too many people out there saying, well, she's not that bad, right,
(35:14):
I don't agree with her, but she's not that bad.
And that was when they realized, Oh, okay, so this
big old war that they waged against me in the
press to make me seem like a terrorist sympathizer. Was like, no,
she's just she asks questions and she thinks mm hmm.
(35:36):
And I don't want my personal diaries used against me.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Right, And you're smart as fuck, right, You're very smart.
You're very committed to what you believe in, and what
you believe in mostly is this country. You're a patriot,
and you're somebody who did the right thing for the
nation to heal the nation from this horrible lie that
was spread that there was no help from Russia during
(35:59):
the twenty sixteen election. Then if it wasn't for you
and what you did, the twenty eighteen election would have
went the same way. That's what all of the experts
say that you had a tremendous influence on the truth
of what was happening and alerting the correct people to
know just how the Russians were doing it and with
(36:20):
whose help. So I would like to thank you. I
think you're an American hero reality. I think what you
did is was needed at the time and when the
press has become corrupted and it's going to take people
speaking out, speaking truth to power, speaking out about what
is untrue that we're consuming as citizens of a country
(36:43):
with a supposed free press, to know the factual matter
of what actually happened to you. So you were there
for a few months and then you took a plea deal, right.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Right, Yeah, So in the spring of twenty eighteen, about
eight months into county jail. We had one last ditch effort.
We filed forty subpoenas, and the judge, acting like the
Supreme Court, turned down thirty nine of them. And that
was when they said, you know, we weren't going to
(37:15):
give her sixty months, but because we had to have
this hearing about the subpoenas and this whole process took
three months, she's getting sixty three months, or you can
try your luck with a jury trial. So they added
three months.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Added three months, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
They added three months because we filed some subpoenas to
defend myself. It wasn't a hard decision. It was like
a holy shit, call her back. Called Jenna. Jenna was
the prosecutor. I told Matt. I remember I was on
the phone. I was in the sheriff's office, and I
was like, holy shit. Matt called Jenna, called Jenna quick
before it's seventy months.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Like right, she was not playing, No, we'll be back
right after this more with Reality Winner, don't go away.
(38:22):
So you were in prison during COVID, yes, and you
got very very sick.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
I did. However, I at that point I'm not gonna
sugarcoat it. I was using drugs, and so when I
realized how sick I was, I got really really high,
which kept me eating and drinking despite how nauseated I was,
And I think that's why within about three days most
(38:50):
of the symptoms had subsided.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Now did you do drugs before you were in prison?
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Was it?
Speaker 1 (38:56):
You were a recreational never used drugs?
Speaker 2 (38:59):
Right?
Speaker 1 (38:59):
You were kind of of a health freak, kind of workout,
eat healthy, right, live healthy? That was not your lifestyle.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
I would go to bars and ask for a sample
of beer just to smell it, because I do I'm
a beer connoisseur, but I wouldn't let alcohol in my body,
so I would just want to smell an ipa.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Right, that's interesting. But that's somebody who's interested in their
own health, right.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
Right.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
So you get to jail and your whole world in
life has collapsed, and it feels as though the entire
country is against you, and your mom is very worried
about you, and she decides to move down to where
you are imprisoned.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
So I was in County jail for so long awaiting
sentencing that she moved into my house. And then one
of the stipulations of me pleading guilty was I want
it to be as close as possible to my parents' house.
So there's a federal prison in Texas. It's about four
hundred and eighty miles away from my parents' house, and
(40:02):
that was as good as it was going to get.
So one of the things we asked of the government
was would you support our request to go to that prison,
And they were just like sure, sure, you know, we
got the sentence we wanted. Well, whatever you want. So
my mother was able to close out my rental house
(40:23):
and move back home to Texas, where they would drive
up every six weeks or so to come visit me
and Fort.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Worth, and she was very worried about the state of
your health all around always.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
I mean even once I got to prison and there
was much more vegetarian food, it was like every meal
is a struggle for resources, Like you don't realize it
until like you're so caught up in it. Every meal,
every shower, every time you need something. You're always like,
(40:57):
am I close enough to the front of the line
to get enough? Because federal prisons run out of food
all the time on mainline, or they wouldn't, they would
purposely not make enough of the vegetarian option, or if
you asked for it and they had to slow down
and make a vegetarian tray, you would get screamed at.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
So I did about three years of just fighting for
the right to be vegetarian, even though I really needed
kosher food. But the chaplain said, there's no such thing
as a kosher vegetarian. So you can either eat the
meats in the kosher meals or you can be a
vegetarian on the mainline. So I had to choose between
(41:36):
my faith and my ethics and just eat non kosher
vegetarian food. Right.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
And the availability of drugs in prison is easy, and
you've found a lot of people doing that as a
way to escape the time and the boredom, and you
fell into that.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
I did, and it really wasn't until the George Floyd lockdown.
So after the riots, I thought that they were just
punishing us. They wouldn't tell us why, of course, but
they put us on a twenty four to seven lockdown,
and they came in the unit with tearguns and tasers
(42:13):
and you know, screaming, get down, get in your rooms,
blah blah blah, and and they held us like that
and I'm telling you seven straight days where you don't
pee without someone's permission. And you know the officers are men,
so they're asking us women, many of whom I had
(42:36):
a miscarriage when I was twenty, but many of whom
had children, why do you have to pee every hour?
Like fuck, you get out of my medical records. I
need to pee right, And you had to fight for
the right to pee for seven straight days. The food
was brought to the unit, and again it was another
chance for them to not make vegetarian options. So I
(42:59):
went on like a mini hunger strike. And it comes
to find out that the Bureau of Prisons sent its
riot task forces from all federal prisons onto the streets
to beat up civilian protesters, and so when doing so,
the prisons went on a complete lockdown, complete deprivation of
(43:24):
our rights, simply because they wanted to go play cops
on the street. And I was pushing back. Every second
of every day. I would sit there like because our
cells in that particular prison didn't have doors, so I
sat right on that line of the cinder blocks, and
I would cut out. I had all my magazines with
(43:45):
me and do like these black lives matter collages, like
right in their face. Right. I was starting to become loud, confrontational, violent, agitated.
And finally the girls in the cell next door, when
I were like Winter, like, you're going to disappear if
you keep this up, like literally you need to chill,
(44:06):
They're like, this isn't drugs. Just take these pills, right,
And after that, you know, I was like, wait, I
don't have to care, you know, And it was great.
And then they're like, well, if you like that, you
should try this, and I did. And I had never
tried to hallucinogens, obviously. I everyone smoked a cigarette or anything.
(44:28):
And that was my escape. I said, I can't do
these lockdowns. I can't not exercise. I'm binging and purging again,
I'm cutting myself if I have to get high every
single day to get through COVID, to keep myself from
the bolimia. It was the only escape I had from
that too, Right, That's what I did.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
And now did people know? Did your mother know? Did
did the wardens know? Did people say you know you're
getting too fucked up every day? Kiddo? This is not
cool with us.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
I mean all my friends, I mean I had friends
that got high and they were still like, dude, you
are better than that. They're like, I'm not, but you are.
And there were some officers. Yeah, as much as other
officers picked on me, there were some officers that knew
just like once I I just you know the word.
(45:18):
This is the stupidest part about prison is that when
I was writing like social studies curriculums, when I was
teaching exercise classes or trying to get educational materials sent
to me that I could give away to other inmates,
the Special Securities officers and the other you know, the
CEOs were on my ass every day. They're like, what
(45:41):
are you exercising for? Like all this other stuff, like
taunting me non stop. If I went to a journalist
to say, you know, the day after George Floyd was murdered,
I saw a white officer in our prison lay hands
on a black woman. You know, don't tell me that's
not what was on her mind, you know. And every
(46:03):
time I tried to help somebody, they shit on me.
When I became violent, when I was buying drugs, when
I was getting caught up with my girlfriend, they left
me alone. The worse I acted, the more personal space I.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
Got that's interesting.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
It was always like, the wors I acted, the more.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
I got, Wow, what a horrible way to succeed in prison, you.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
Know, I mean I came out that summer. I was
a mess. I was a different person because I thought
the only.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
Way you went in and then you stayed in for
four and a half years, right, yes, And then they
told you three days before you're out of here? Did
you know that date was the countdown date?
Speaker 2 (46:43):
I knew about nine months out and then leading up
to it, COVID was going on. And they pulled me
aside about a month and a half before and they said,
you know, you're supposed to go to your halfway house
on May twenty sixth. However, they're only accepting people on
(47:03):
Wednesdays so that they can all do their COVID quarantine
on the same day of the week, right, they said,
So instead of letting you out maybe with a Thursday,
instead of letting you out the Wednesday before one day early,
we're keeping you till the next Wednesday.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
How infuriating.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
But I had to go on the phone and tell
my mom it's going to be another Wednesday. It's going
to be a whole week later.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
Now when you get out. Did they have a step
down program? Did they have some way to help you
with number one your addiction? Number two? Your PTSD R
bolimia was there? Was there any kind of structure set
up for you leaving prison to sort of help you
back into society.
Speaker 2 (47:43):
No, the constant harassment and re traumatization did not end
at the prison. At the halfway house, I was promised
to be released a home confinement on an ACLE monitor
within a week, and then the day before they said, oh,
that's not an option for you anymore, because no reason given.
I lawyered up and we started asking questions, and then
(48:07):
at three pm the day before, on a Tuesday, they said,
you can only go home if you can have somebody
pick you up tomorrow morning before nine am. And I said,
I'm reality fucking winner, like done, Like.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
I was gonna say, you should have called me. I
would have come and got you if you would have
called me.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
You know, so you know it. That was hard enough.
And then I get the INKLE monitor on and we
go home. These people have my home addressed. This is
the federal government. My INKLE monitors not syncing up with
their system. And I called them and they're like, we
can't find your house on the map.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
It's not my fault.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
And they said, the inkle monitor's not working. You can
come back and get another or and I said, or
we can keep trying. And you know what I mean
with the way these institutions close at five pm, I
was like, do but if we go back, they're not.
Speaker 1 (49:01):
Letting me out all right. I wouldn't go back.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
So my dad actually did an apple pin and he
sent them the exact coordinance, like we had to give
the government exact coordinance so they could sink the ankle monitor.
And then even then the ankle monitor would continue to buzz.
And then for six straight months, you cannot miss a
phone call, right, you have to keep that phone on
(49:25):
you in the shower. But every time you start to
shake and you throw up and you get scared.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
Of course, how could you not to have all of
this had happened and what you lived through. I mean,
how are you doing now? I read something or I
saw you in an interview where you talked about feeling
ashamed of how hard it is to be clean, and
I thought, why would you be ashamed of that? Honey,
You're at least doing it right.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
Yeah, I mean, my father was an addict, and I
spent so much of my formative years in my adult
early adulthood just like wondering why he couldn't just do
it for us. And when I decided to get clean
in that prison with a roommate that was still using
and still had plenty of access to it, I didn't
(50:11):
understand why it was so hard, especially when I wasn't
even using an addictive substance. I just have an OCD
repetitive brain function, right, you know, it's part of like
the bolimia.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
Right, Intrusive thoughts, intrusive thoughts.
Speaker 2 (50:29):
Intrusive thoughts, yeah, and patterns, you know. So I was
kind of like, you know, I just spent four years
in a patriot dish of understanding what our country gets
wrong about addiction, And here I am been like I
should have fixed this, and now I can't. And I'm
going home in six months and I can't go home
(50:50):
like this? Why is this so hard?
Speaker 1 (50:53):
You are out, now you're off probation, and how are
you doing it this moment?
Speaker 2 (50:57):
I am on probation.
Speaker 1 (50:59):
Oh, I thought you were just off.
Speaker 2 (51:01):
No, I am stuck with a ten pm to six
am curfew, random drug tests and monthly reporting till November
twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (51:11):
How would you say you're doing in your life? What
kind of work are you doing? Are you able to
say that or just be vague with us?
Speaker 2 (51:17):
Yes, I am. I'm living the dream. I coach CrossFit
full time great yep, And then in my personal life,
I do CrossFit and I compete acrossfit. You know, we're
kind of running a dog rescue now. We just got
a new chihuahua with a broken leg. But we're in
the process of learning how to run a ranch. And
(51:38):
I have a lot of I have a lot of
hope for the future. I know that right now, it's
still while I have these probation conditions, can't leave the
southern part of Texas. I'm using that as my insulation,
my time to be self indulgent, my time to pretend
like I'm an athlete.
Speaker 1 (51:56):
You are an athlete reality, don't take that away from yourself.
Well you are that, and I hope that you have
found a way to quote unquote forgive yourself. Although what
I thought about what you did was righteous, brave and courageous,
patriotic and fan fuckingtastic. I really did. I you know
you are going to go down in history as a hero.
(52:17):
And when this horrible time is over and twenty four
and you're able to go speak about whatever it is
you want to speak about, I would love to interview
you again when you have all the stuff that you
know you might not be able to say now, but
you survived it. And I remember sending you books, being
so frustrated that that's all you could send were books
(52:38):
through Amazon. I thought, how did Amazon get that deal
with all of prisons in America right that all the
purchase How did they do that everything that you send
has to go through Amazon? Listen, I support you, I
always will, I always have. I think you're fantastic. I
think that your service to this country is unparalleled. And
I want to thank you for being so brave and
(53:01):
doing what few people would have the courage to do
in the name of truth and in the name of
the American way.
Speaker 2 (53:07):
Well, thank you for your support. And I mean, like
I said, big shout out for you know, being there
for my mom. You know she says Hi, yes, And
I mean you that's the most important thing in the
whole entire world for me, is just making sure my
mom is proud and that she feels supported. You know,
I did a stupid thing. I threw my life under
(53:28):
the bus. I didn't mean to drag her with me
and anybody like you that reaches out to her, y'all
are my heroes.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
Well, I'm going to put her instagram on my Instagram
feed and maybe people can reach out and tell her
what they think of how she parented you through this crisis.
I think it was pretty astonishing, really astonishing, and I
look up to her as a parent because you know
what she did, I would hope to have the courage
to do myself.
Speaker 2 (53:54):
Thank you for that.
Speaker 1 (53:55):
Hey, Reality Winner, You're the greatest. And I'm glad that
we're still in Ton, and I'm glad that you could
do this podcast. And I hope to talk to you
again soon.
Speaker 2 (54:04):
Can't wait.
Speaker 1 (54:05):
All right, honey, take care of yourself. Well, I hope
you guys found that as fascinating as I do. I
don't know. I think she's somebody that America should know
(54:25):
about and should know what happened to her when Trump
and Jeff Sessions tried to make an example out of
her and really almost succeeded in ruining and taking her
life as she was serving that time, in jail, and
we have no time for questions this week, but we'll
be back next week with Belinda Carlisle. Enjoy your July
fourth celebration. God bless America and onward, everyone onward.
Well, hello everybody. It is me Rosie O'Donnell, Star of
Wide Awake, which is a film you probably never saw
that I was in playing a nun, but people were
sick of me saying Star the Flintstones. But frankly it
rolls off my tongue in a way that I enjoy.
How are you. I'm doing good. You're getting ready for
your big Fourth of July extravaganza, having a few people
(00:33):
over here, little pool party. It's going to be fun.
I had a wonderful time last night. I took my
daughter Vivian, and my son Blakey and his fiance Teresa,
and Vivi's friend Erica to see Logic Bobby Hall, who
is one of the greatest rappers in the world, and
(00:54):
you all probably know who he is. He did an
episode of the podcast and I just fell in love
with the guy. He is so wonderfully optimistic. He's full
of positivity, he's full of patience, he's full of pathos
and just perfection, you know. And I got to tell
you he did something that made me cry last night.
(01:14):
He was introducing people who were in the audience and
who had really inspired him in his work and his life.
As a creative performer. And then he said, you know
who's here, Rosie O'Donnell, And he told the whole story
about how we met at NOBU and the whole synchronicity
of us sort of getting into each other's lives, and
(01:37):
he was so lovely and made me stand up and
the crowd all clapped and he was like, what she's
done as a gay woman at a time when it
wasn't easy, And I just love that guy, I gotta
tell you. I started to cry, you know, And then
walking out, everyone's like, Rosie, hey, Rosie, love you man.
Thanks what you do hey, Rosie?
Speaker 2 (01:57):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
So it was a lovely not just because of that,
but boy was that the icing on a very delicious cake.
I loved every minute of it to listen Today's guest,
and today's show is a little different than what we
normally do. There's a couple of issues we talk about
with my guest about self abuse, self harm, about drug addiction,
(02:20):
and about her life in prison. And it's just an
emotional trigger warning for people if you have issues with
these kinds of things. I want to give you a
heads up. Pretty amazing guest that I have today and
her name is Reality Winner. First of all, isn't that
name something? I mean? Reality Winner is her actual name,
(02:44):
And it was years ago when she got arrested and
I saw the charges and what they were trying to
do to her as a result of being a whistleblower.
Reality Winner was a high ranking member of the Air
Force assigned to the drone program. She intercepted foreign chatter
to provide US forces with intelligence. She was awarded the
(03:04):
Air Force Commendation Medal for aiding and six hundred and
fifty enemy captures and identifying nine hundred high value targets.
She left the Air Force and became an NSSA translator
and then a top security Clearance military contractor, during which
time Reality downloaded an article from the NSSAY that talked
(03:24):
about how the Russians fished many registered electors through email
and interfered with the twenty sixteen elections. There was strong
evidence that Russian hackers had manipulated and influenced voters through
well planned strategies and experimental software techniques, but she realized
that none of this was available to the public domain.
(03:46):
No one knew. She said she felt a responsibility as
a citizen that it was her duty to leak the
document in good faith. She downloaded the article, she printed it,
folded it in half, put it in her paneos, and
took it out of the building undetected. She sent the
article by mail anonymously to the Intercept. They sent copies
of the documents to the NSA to confirm their accuracy,
(04:08):
and the NSA notified the FBI. The FBI obtained a
warrant to search winners electronic devices and home, and she
was eventually arrested. She was charged with one act under
the hardly used Espionage Act of nineteen seventeen, and she
pled not guilty. Blocked from being allowed to use bail twice,
Winner asked the court to allow her to change or
(04:30):
plead it guilty because as she tried to defend herself,
they kept adding time to her jail sentence. Winner then
pleaded guilty to one count of felony transmission of national
defense information under the Espionage Act of nineteen seventeen as
she sat in jail. A larger conversation surrounding Russian interference
in the twenty sixteen elections, allegations of collusion between the
(04:53):
Trump campaign and Russia, and the role of whistleblowers in
American society was started, mostly went unreported, and now here
we are July twenty twenty three, and the ongoing investigation
into Trump's alleged misuse of classified documents. He's been charged
with thirty seven charges, specifically thirty one violations of the
(05:15):
Espionage Act of nineteen seventeen, the very same law that
Trump and AG Jeff Sessions used to charge Reality Winner
and make an example out of her, to jail her
for nearly five years, the longest time anyone ever spent
in jail charged with that crime, and he is now
charged with thirty something counts of that exact crime. I
(05:38):
think it's karma. I really do. I believe in Reality Winner.
I've known her for four years now. We kept in
touch through her mom and through letters and texts and emails,
and I think she's a national hero. And what she
did was vitally important. At a time when the American
(06:00):
news media did not feel any allegiance to the truth.
She stood up and said, well, here's the truth, and
here's the facts, and here's the proof, and good for her,
here she is Reality Winner. Well, hello, Reality Winner, Hi Rosie.
(06:27):
I'm so happy to talk to you. I'm so happy
to see you. I'm so happy to see you are
out of prison and you look well.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
I'm just happy to be here. I'm happy for your support,
and I just I'm so grateful for you. First of all,
if I could just interrupt and say that, like when
you came out of the woodworks and express support to
my mother, Yes, I can't even describe the amount of
hope that you gave her in those moments when I
was in jail, and I just, I mean, that's everything
(06:58):
to me. People who are there for my mom when
I can't be.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
I can understand. Well, it was interesting. I had heard
the story on the news, and I went and googled it,
and it was like, is this her real name? Reality winner?
And to go up against the Trump administration who was
a reality host. Like I just thought, oh my god,
this is like epic and Shakespearean and this isn't an accident.
(07:23):
Pay attention, you know. And I called your mom and
she was so lovely and so obviously concerned and worried.
I think that was before she moved down to where
you were in prison, right.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Yeah, So that was at the beginning when we were
just trying to figure, what do you do when you're
in the system.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Yes, so Reality Winner, for those of you who don't know,
is an American hero. She worked for the government. She
was in the Air Force, and she did translations of
Arabic languages.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Correct, they're written in the Arabic alphabet, but they're Farce
Dory and Pashto.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
And how did you learn those three languages? They don't
seem so easy.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
They kind of beat them into you. In the military.
You go to the Defense Language Institute, which is like
the Hogwarts for languages.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Wow. Did you have a natural talent for foreign languages
when you were a kid or was this something that
you wanted to do to sort of help the country
prevent terrorist attacks.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
I think it's a little bit of both. I really
wanted it so badly when I was a kid. I
used to trace the Arabic alphabet to show my dad,
and I would draw maps of Afghanistan. He was like
everybody else, just trying to figure out what exactly happened
on nine to eleven. And in high school, I remember
taking Latin and just being obsessed with it as like
(08:48):
a groundwork for how to learn other languages because it's so.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Structured yeah, and you were obviously quite good at it,
I hope. So, yeah, Well you got lots of accommodations
while you were serving in the Air Force. What was
the big medal that they show in the dock that
I saw that you got a medal for outstanding performance
or something similar?
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Right? And I guess at one time I was the
only person pretty much in the Air Force that had
perfect scores in three separate languages.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Wow, that's pretty big. Did you always want to serve
for your country? Did? How old were you when you
decided to go into the Air Force?
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Well, I was seventeen when I walked into the Army
recruiter's office and my parents had to stage an entire intervention.
They threatened to call my stepbrother who was in the
Air Force, and they said, you know, sweetie, like you're
too smart for this. You need to go into the
Air Force. And the Air Force's attitude was kind of
(09:51):
like in Ivy League college, like we'll talk to you
once you've met the requirement. And I didn't really appreciate that.
When I was seventeen, I wanted just to be taken in,
but I had always wanted to be involved in the
international geopolitical atmosphere that had basically become the world after
(10:13):
nine to eleven. Yes, it was like the only thing
I had as a child to keep my dad's attention.
You know, he was a psychologist and a theologist. So
what happened that day was became his next obsession of
how you can use a faith in such a toxic way? Right? Right?
Speaker 1 (10:35):
How old were you in back then nine to eleven?
Speaker 2 (10:39):
I was almost I was almost ten years old. Yeah,
I was nine.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Yeah, So it totally colored your whole childhood and possibly
your desire to go in and help this specific area
in chaos, right, and.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Especially I think that as a young girl growing up
in South Texas, our views of the war in Iraq
and afghanis to stand. There really weren't a lot of
question marks. You know. There's so many people that ask me, really,
you you wanted to help people, why would you join
the military? And for me, that was the quickest way
(11:13):
to get to a job where you're helping people.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Right, And did you think about going to college as well?
Or you thought you would just join right then? Out
of high school?
Speaker 2 (11:23):
I actually was pretty much set up to go to
college for mechanical engineering and My thought was to be
like a big successful aircraft mechanic, so that I would
make enough money to learn these languages, to be a
philanthropist and do everything in support of this country and
(11:44):
counter terrorism and humanitarian aid. But after like ten years
of you know, college and work instead of doing it
right off the bat, just with a service uniform on.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Right, So it was a quicker route to get to
ways you wanted to.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Yes, my step brother Cole was a linguist in the
Air Force, and so that's how I knew that there
was a language school in the United States that could
get you fluent in any language in the world within
a year. And once I found that out, I pretty much,
you know, whatever it took, I was going to get there.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
We'll be back right after this more with Reality Winner,
don't go away. Now. You worked listening in to conversations
(12:52):
of people in Iraq and Afghanistan and then reporting what
you heard, and then as a result, there would be
drone strikes from some of your things that you learned
from listening in and from translating correct.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
I'm not allowed to get that specific, but generally that
is how the war in Afghanistan was carried out.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Okay, And eventually the statistics and all of the facts
that you knew about what was happening with this particular
line of work and line of defense that the United
States government was using resulted in a lot of casualties
that were not necessarily the targets, and that weighed on
(13:36):
you very heavily. Tell me if you can't say it
reality and we'll skip, because I'm not trying to get
you in trouble. I'm trying to understand your mental state.
When you decided I can't do this anymore, I might
want to switch over to something else.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Right, I realized that what we were doing was the
greatest recruitment tool for insurgent groups like the Taliban, ISIS
and al Qaida.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Right, So it didn't it didn't sit well in your soul.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
No, it didn't feel good that I was becoming part
of the problem that I made it my life's mission
to solve.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
So you made a switch at that time after ten
years in the Air Force.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
So I did six years in the Air Force, and
I realized about a month before my separation that none
of my language training and experience meant anything to like
the un human refugees Council unis usaid I wasn't even
qualified to pass out blankets at a refugee camp. You
(14:40):
needed at least a master's degree, and you had to
be self sufficient and have enough money saved up to
live by yourself in country for a year doing unpaid labor.
I realized the ugly side of humanitarian aid is that
it's very much paid a play and nothing I had
was good enough to even apply.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
So I said, I'm not going to go to college
for four or five years. I'm going to stay working
and I'm going to get a year of in country
work expertise with a defense contract. So I started just
taking any defense contract as a way of jumping from
(15:23):
contract to contract, keeping a top secret clearance to get
a deployment to Afghanistan for one year. So I could
then take that to the UN or any other refugee
agency and say I worked as an interpreter in Afghanistan
for a year. May I work for you to help
(15:43):
refugees find their family members.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Right?
Speaker 2 (15:47):
So that is how I wound up at NSA Georgia.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Got it so you didn't get to go in country
for a year, right, I did not.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
I hadn't quite gotten that far before committing a felony
because I was just so dissatisfied with the state of Mali,
the country in general, but just my life, you know
it just being at that transition stage and having come
so far and not being any closer to the humanitarian
(16:17):
aid career I thought I would have by twenty five, Right,
It just really led me down a dark path in
my life.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Right. And you suffered with depression while you were in
the Air Force, and anxiety, and you had an eating disorder,
right all starting way back then or did only start
after you you got the new job in Georgia.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Yeah, the eating disorder had pretty much always been there
since childhood, right, and it's been I mean, there's years
of my Air Force service that I don't remember except
for what I did to avoid binging and purging.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Yes, I understand.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
I don't remember anything from the year twenty fourteen, except
I can't anything other than alvocado on wheatbread. I think
I ate that for a year straight, right, Like in
other words, I was pretty much ready for prison, right.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Yeah, you were the same. You were kind of getting
up up there, getting your your taste. Bud's ready at
least so you go to work exactly, you go to
work in Georgia, and it's at the time when there's
a lot of concern in the United States that Russia
has interfered in our elections. And the president at the
time was telling, no, that's never happened. I don't have
(17:30):
anything to do with Russia. They did not at all
help me win. They didn't help anything. And there you are,
with your top secret clearance looking at all of these
forms and of information and top secret material, and something
comes across your desks that confirms Russia's involvement in the election.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
I can't confirm any of that, but what I can
say is that there was a game going on in
twenty seventeen, and the you know, the punching bag of
the whole situation were United States institutions. It was the NSA.
And what I didn't hear was my agency speaking for itself. Right,
(18:14):
So I jumped rink and I tried to speak for
my entire agency, and in doing so, I committed a felony.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Yes, and the felony was printing out one article, yes,
one article, and when the publisher of the person you
sent it to the intercept right, when when they I
don't know if you can confirm that either. I don't
know what I'm allowed to say. Please stop me reality,
because I don't want to get you in trouble. Right,
So you send this away and a few weeks later
(18:43):
it's published, and then you're at your house coming home
from the grocery store and there's somebody at your house
where your dogs and your cat and your life.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Is it actually and you even believe it gets uglier
than that?
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Please?
Speaker 2 (18:57):
So the intercept, the intercept saw it said, you know,
we're going to send it straight back to the NSA
to confirm that it's real, and in doing so leads
the FBI directly to my footsteps and waits until it's
confirmed that I'm in custody to then publish the document
(19:19):
one hour before the Department of Justice makes a public
announcement of my arrest.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Yes, so they held onto it, and so you tell
me if they knew if I was in custody yet
or not. But they had that document for two and
a half, almost three weeks, and they just happened to
publish it Monday morning. I think it was like fifty
three minutes before the district attorney for the Southern District
(19:47):
of Georgia announced my arrest.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
And we have all seen with the new wonderful reenactment
of the actual interrogation that was recorded by the FBI.
We saw that in Is This a Room? The play
that I went to see about it on Broadway Off Broadway,
which was astounding and amazing, and then this sort of
take off on that the whole interrogation of what went
(20:12):
down in real time, of how long it took in
a live show. It was absolutely riveting. And it's on
now as well. What network is that on? Do you
remember HBO?
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Max?
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Yes? Okay, so let's gauge this your anxiety. When they're
all talking to you, they're asking questions, they're saying did
you take anything out? They're being kind of weird around you,
I would say, and you are spinning your wheels trying
to think what do I do? Did you at any
time think I should call my lawyer?
Speaker 2 (20:43):
I didn't have a lawyer. I did not know which
law I had broken yet. I might be the dumbest
person ever, but I guess when it comes to this
sort of crime, it was such a stigma, the look
a snowed in or manning or to understand their actual
(21:04):
legal proceedings against them. Yes, so I knew I had
done something really terribly against the rules, probably against the laws.
I did not know that it was actually under the
Espionage Act in nineteen.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Seventeen, which no case had been tried under that Act
for a very long time. Is that true?
Speaker 2 (21:23):
There have been several in the past twenty years, and
then they tried to do that to Daniel Ellsberg. But
it's very rarely used, but when it is, there is
almost zero legal defense against it.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
A question that a lot of people have from watching
the doc infote sort of what would we call it.
It's not really a doc. It's acted out, but it's
the performed interrogation of you, and it's fascinating, absolutely compelling
to watch, and that you were never given your miranda
rights or told you were under arrest right.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Exactly several times outside of the recording, I had asked
if I was under arrest, they said, we don't know yet.
I had seen communications with those agents from the night
before Friday night. They were supposed to go and immediately
arrest me and then search my house. On Saturday morning,
(22:20):
they had called off the arrest, but they said, you know,
perform the warrant for me. The only thing I knew
was that when Chelsea Manning was taken, she was disappeared
for seven months in solitary confinement on a Marine Corps
base up by DC. So when they wouldn't tell me
(22:43):
if I was under a rest orant, when they weren't
making it sound like this was a interaction with law enforcement,
when they did not act like police officers, I thought
there was going to be some extra judicial bullshit going on.
I knew I was going to disappear that night if
I survived, because they weren't acting like police officers and
(23:08):
they didn't say jail. It wasn't until the female police
officer showed up and said, Hi, I'm going to be
the one taking you to jail tonight. That was the
closest time somebody had said Reality Winner, you are under arrest.
When agent Garrick, the one in the film said you're
(23:29):
under arrest, he didn't say that. He said, yeah, we're
going to have to take you in. It's going to
be a bit of a drive, Like what the fuck
does that mean?
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (23:38):
And legally what does that mean?
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Correct? And you probably were thinking, you know, they're going
to take me somewhere and maybe not going to be
seen again.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I mean, when you're in my line of work and
you understand black sites, and you understand that once you're
on that side of the law, you know it's not
a uniform police, it is the FBI. They can take
you anywhere, you don't have to under arrest. And apparently,
and one of the things that it's so weird in
(24:05):
this film is at any point in time, according to
those FBI agents and according to the court, that girl
in the film is free to walk away at any time,
even though they parked her core in, even though her
car keys and her wallet are inside the house wile
a warrant is being executed, she is free to say,
(24:26):
excuse me, go grab her keys in her wallet, somehow
drive away and not be followed. That is their legal
justification for not reading me.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
My Randa rites, well, that is absolutely absurd. As you
can see from the film and also from the play.
If you read the actual interrogation, you were completely trapped
and they were kind of cat and mousing you, it
seemed right, with ridiculously sexist questions like you know, where's
your gun? Is it pink? Like? What was that about
(24:57):
do you know what I mean, Like, as I'm watching this,
I'm thinking, what third question to ask somebody who has
been in the military and has obviously the wherewithal an
ability to use these weapons, And you know, I just
felt like it was so kind of infantalizing or misogynistic.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
I set myself up for that one though, because my
gun was pink.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Right, But that's okay. I don't care what color it is,
you know.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
I mean, you know which gun were they talking about?
My shotgun wasn't pink, My glock wasn't pink. But yeah,
I mean the way the certain questions being tagged on
at the end of everything, I mean, it's certainly not
an orthodox you know situations. It was very strange.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
It was hinky, as they say in police work. It
was hinky. We'll be right back after this with more
with reality winner Where were you taken that night? And
(26:08):
did you get to call your mother? And when I did.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
So, thankfully, when I was rescued by the police and
taken to a regular jail where my whereabouts were documented,
I made a collect call. I tried to call my
sister first, and she didn't answer, so I called my
mother and I It's so weird because I was able
to call her once and then what happens to people
(26:32):
when we incarcerate them. It was a Saturday night, and
they told me that they don't give out individual personal
phone pin numbers except for Tuesdays.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
So I got my free phone call and was told
to go back to the cell block with the other
women and good luck.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
These were the women charged with a variety of crimes,
none having to do with national security. You're the only
one there, like you, okay, yeah, and you're terrified. You've
never been in the situation before. You don't, really, this
is not something that you ever thought would happen to
you in your life, correct, right?
Speaker 2 (27:07):
I mean, yeah, it's not something i'd ever prepared myself for.
I think I was more prepared for the solitary kind
affinement at Quantico than I was to be with normal
American citizens in a county jail.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
So what did your mother say? What was her reaction?
Were you able to in that short phone call tell
her the gist of it? Did she understand?
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Yes? Actually, it was the second time on record that
I confess to my felony. Because I am not the mastermind.
They thought I was right, and I needed her to
understand kind of what I did. You know what I mean, like,
what do you do when you're in jail, Like, Mom,
I'm in jail. Don't worry. I didn't kill nobody, right,
you know. And I just really thought that this would
(27:52):
be I thought I would have a legal chance. I
thought I would get out on bail. I thought I
would have a chance to find an attorney. I thought
this would be a misunderstanding that might end my career,
but not possibly my entire life. Right by that Thursday,
we realized exactly what we were up against.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
And terror filled you. Yes, you were sentenced to prison
for releasing a piece of paper or three that told
the truth about Russia's interference in our elections. And Donald
Trump did not want that anywhere out in the public,
(28:32):
and Jeff Sessions, his ag threw the book at you.
You were serving more time, and you had a longer
sentence than people who had broken that law and done
so much more damage to the country and whatnot, and
they were given less time. You were made an example
of right.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
And I was the only person in history ever denied
bail for this act, the only other person and kept
in custody was an actual Cuban spy. Ana Montes.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Now, when they said you're sentenced to five years, did
you think you would be doing all five years?
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Absolutely? I was ready to plead guilty on day one,
having already confessed. I did not hide behind what I
had done. It was after a few months of realizing that.
So if you kill somebody, you get the option to
say I didn't mean to, it was an accident, or
(29:34):
I was under the influence of something or self defense, right,
and then it gets what downgrade it to manslaughter or
anything else. When it comes to the Espiono Jack in
nineteen seventeen, you did the thing or you didn't. It
is the only law in the United States law where
your criminal men's raya or your criminal intent does not matter.
(29:55):
The actual harm done to national security does not matter.
And I was not indicted for releasing classified information. I
was indicted for releasing national defense information. This law is
one hundred and five years old. Today there is no
legal definition of what national defense information even is. When
(30:19):
the law was written, it meant locations of submarines and
troop movements, as well as attack plans. It was a
World War One law and since then, they've intentionally left
it vague, so we could mean anything. Once a district
attorney and a grand jury has made the decision that
(30:40):
what has been willfully retained and then disseminated is national
defense information, a defendant no longer has the right to
even question if what they leaked or had or passed
on or retained even is national defense information. The government
does not have to prove that damage was done. It's
(31:03):
if you did it, you're facing ten years, and if
you didn't, you need to prove that you did it.
It's one of the few laws where the burden of
proof actually lies in the defendant and not the prosecution.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Wow, did you have anybody like the ACLU or some
pro bono lawyer fighting for truth and journalism and you
know it's whistleblower stuff. Did you think, well, maybe this
is a whistleblower thing, Maybe I could use that defense.
But you weren't even really given a chance to have
a defense because of the archaic nature of the law.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Exactly, and even from the get go, my public defenders
were taken away from me because I was twenty five
years old and I had thirty thousand dollars in savings,
from the Air Force, so obviously I could get a
top notch legal defense going after a couple months. The
Intercept was underneath a media corporation who reached out to
(32:01):
the Freedom of the Press Foundation, who then decided that
they would take on my case pro bono. However, at
every time I was reminded by those attorneys that the
Freedom of the Press was hired by the Intercept to
pay for my legal defense. So at no time was
(32:25):
I the client. Was my defense the most important thing?
It was keeping the Intercept out of court.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Well, that's duplicitus. That's very duplicitous, isn't it, That they're
not really representing you at all?
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Right, And I had my I actually retained my public defenders.
They said, we're here for you. We will stay on
for free. And they were the ones that explained that
all of that to me. They said, go with these people.
They have an entire law firm. I mean I'd had
like nine different attorneys from them. They said, they're the
(33:00):
only chance you have at having just the manpower to
fight this at all if you want a fighting chance,
or if you want a good plea deal. But we
need you to know that they're protecting the person paying
the bill right, and you're not paying the bill right.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
So it's never a pretty picture. But I was also
I was very privileged, very fortunate, and those attorneys are
some of the most I mean, the integrity that they had,
the compassion that they had. I'm still in touch with
them today. Joe Whitley is just one of the finest
humans I've ever met.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Oh how great. And he was there for you the
whole time, yes.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Even now. I mean just the way he's reached out
since then. I mean, this has just been a way
of accumulating people within my life, just amazing people.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Who just show up and stand by you exactly.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
I mean, it's the greatest gift ever.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Yes, I imagine that it is, especially when you are
spread all over the news in a very short timeframe.
Was like you were arrested. It was out there, and
then it kind of wasn't on the news. And whenever
I would be at anything, I was at some protests
about the former president who was in office, and I
(34:20):
was there and I was interviewed, and I would always say,
what about reality winner, Why aren't you talking about how
Jeff Session use this as the personal get back person,
you know, to get back at you for telling the truth,
and you're a woman, and he likes to do it
to women, and he likes to think women are less
than them, And so he used everything within his means
(34:42):
as the president of the United States to suppress the
story after you were arrested, and then to not have
mainstream media really pick it up anywhere.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
I think they realized that I'm not like a crazy,
unique person, but there are too many things about me
that people can identify with. Everybody kind of knows somebody
kind of like me, or somebody who's thirty or when
I was twenty five at the time, it was like
I felt like I embody my generation. And there were
too many people out there saying, well, she's not that bad, right,
(35:14):
I don't agree with her, but she's not that bad.
And that was when they realized, Oh, okay, so this
big old war that they waged against me in the
press to make me seem like a terrorist sympathizer. Was like, no,
she's just she asks questions and she thinks mm hmm.
(35:36):
And I don't want my personal diaries used against me.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Right, And you're smart as fuck, right, You're very smart.
You're very committed to what you believe in, and what
you believe in mostly is this country. You're a patriot,
and you're somebody who did the right thing for the
nation to heal the nation from this horrible lie that
was spread that there was no help from Russia during
(35:59):
the twenty sixteen election. Then if it wasn't for you
and what you did, the twenty eighteen election would have
went the same way. That's what all of the experts
say that you had a tremendous influence on the truth
of what was happening and alerting the correct people to
know just how the Russians were doing it and with
(36:20):
whose help. So I would like to thank you. I
think you're an American hero reality. I think what you
did is was needed at the time and when the
press has become corrupted and it's going to take people
speaking out, speaking truth to power, speaking out about what
is untrue that we're consuming as citizens of a country
(36:43):
with a supposed free press, to know the factual matter
of what actually happened to you. So you were there
for a few months and then you took a plea deal, right.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Right, Yeah, So in the spring of twenty eighteen, about
eight months into county jail. We had one last ditch effort.
We filed forty subpoenas, and the judge, acting like the
Supreme Court, turned down thirty nine of them. And that
was when they said, you know, we weren't going to
(37:15):
give her sixty months, but because we had to have
this hearing about the subpoenas and this whole process took
three months, she's getting sixty three months, or you can
try your luck with a jury trial. So they added
three months.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Added three months, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
They added three months because we filed some subpoenas to
defend myself. It wasn't a hard decision. It was like
a holy shit, call her back. Called Jenna. Jenna was
the prosecutor. I told Matt. I remember I was on
the phone. I was in the sheriff's office, and I
was like, holy shit. Matt called Jenna, called Jenna quick
before it's seventy months.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Like right, she was not playing, No, we'll be back
right after this more with Reality Winner, don't go away.
(38:22):
So you were in prison during COVID, yes, and you
got very very sick.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
I did. However, I at that point I'm not gonna
sugarcoat it. I was using drugs, and so when I
realized how sick I was, I got really really high,
which kept me eating and drinking despite how nauseated I was,
And I think that's why within about three days most
(38:50):
of the symptoms had subsided.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Now did you do drugs before you were in prison?
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Was it?
Speaker 1 (38:56):
You were a recreational never used drugs?
Speaker 2 (38:59):
Right?
Speaker 1 (38:59):
You were kind of of a health freak, kind of workout,
eat healthy, right, live healthy? That was not your lifestyle.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
I would go to bars and ask for a sample
of beer just to smell it, because I do I'm
a beer connoisseur, but I wouldn't let alcohol in my body,
so I would just want to smell an ipa.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Right, that's interesting. But that's somebody who's interested in their
own health, right.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
Right.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
So you get to jail and your whole world in
life has collapsed, and it feels as though the entire
country is against you, and your mom is very worried
about you, and she decides to move down to where
you are imprisoned.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
So I was in County jail for so long awaiting
sentencing that she moved into my house. And then one
of the stipulations of me pleading guilty was I want
it to be as close as possible to my parents' house.
So there's a federal prison in Texas. It's about four
hundred and eighty miles away from my parents' house, and
(40:02):
that was as good as it was going to get.
So one of the things we asked of the government
was would you support our request to go to that prison,
And they were just like sure, sure, you know, we
got the sentence we wanted. Well, whatever you want. So
my mother was able to close out my rental house
(40:23):
and move back home to Texas, where they would drive
up every six weeks or so to come visit me
and Fort.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Worth, and she was very worried about the state of
your health all around always.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
I mean even once I got to prison and there
was much more vegetarian food, it was like every meal
is a struggle for resources, Like you don't realize it
until like you're so caught up in it. Every meal,
every shower, every time you need something. You're always like,
(40:57):
am I close enough to the front of the line
to get enough? Because federal prisons run out of food
all the time on mainline, or they wouldn't, they would
purposely not make enough of the vegetarian option, or if
you asked for it and they had to slow down
and make a vegetarian tray, you would get screamed at.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
So I did about three years of just fighting for
the right to be vegetarian, even though I really needed
kosher food. But the chaplain said, there's no such thing
as a kosher vegetarian. So you can either eat the
meats in the kosher meals or you can be a
vegetarian on the mainline. So I had to choose between
(41:36):
my faith and my ethics and just eat non kosher
vegetarian food. Right.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
And the availability of drugs in prison is easy, and
you've found a lot of people doing that as a
way to escape the time and the boredom, and you
fell into that.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
I did, and it really wasn't until the George Floyd lockdown.
So after the riots, I thought that they were just
punishing us. They wouldn't tell us why, of course, but
they put us on a twenty four to seven lockdown,
and they came in the unit with tearguns and tasers
(42:13):
and you know, screaming, get down, get in your rooms,
blah blah blah, and and they held us like that
and I'm telling you seven straight days where you don't
pee without someone's permission. And you know the officers are men,
so they're asking us women, many of whom I had
(42:36):
a miscarriage when I was twenty, but many of whom
had children, why do you have to pee every hour?
Like fuck, you get out of my medical records. I
need to pee right, And you had to fight for
the right to pee for seven straight days. The food
was brought to the unit, and again it was another
chance for them to not make vegetarian options. So I
(42:59):
went on like a mini hunger strike. And it comes
to find out that the Bureau of Prisons sent its
riot task forces from all federal prisons onto the streets
to beat up civilian protesters, and so when doing so,
the prisons went on a complete lockdown, complete deprivation of
(43:24):
our rights, simply because they wanted to go play cops
on the street. And I was pushing back. Every second
of every day. I would sit there like because our
cells in that particular prison didn't have doors, so I
sat right on that line of the cinder blocks, and
I would cut out. I had all my magazines with
(43:45):
me and do like these black lives matter collages, like
right in their face. Right. I was starting to become loud, confrontational, violent, agitated.
And finally the girls in the cell next door, when
I were like Winter, like, you're going to disappear if
you keep this up, like literally you need to chill,
(44:06):
They're like, this isn't drugs. Just take these pills, right,
And after that, you know, I was like, wait, I
don't have to care, you know, And it was great.
And then they're like, well, if you like that, you
should try this, and I did. And I had never
tried to hallucinogens, obviously. I everyone smoked a cigarette or anything.
(44:28):
And that was my escape. I said, I can't do
these lockdowns. I can't not exercise. I'm binging and purging again,
I'm cutting myself if I have to get high every
single day to get through COVID, to keep myself from
the bolimia. It was the only escape I had from
that too, Right, That's what I did.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
And now did people know? Did your mother know? Did
did the wardens know? Did people say you know you're
getting too fucked up every day? Kiddo? This is not
cool with us.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
I mean all my friends, I mean I had friends
that got high and they were still like, dude, you
are better than that. They're like, I'm not, but you are.
And there were some officers. Yeah, as much as other
officers picked on me, there were some officers that knew
just like once I I just you know the word.
(45:18):
This is the stupidest part about prison is that when
I was writing like social studies curriculums, when I was
teaching exercise classes or trying to get educational materials sent
to me that I could give away to other inmates,
the Special Securities officers and the other you know, the
CEOs were on my ass every day. They're like, what
(45:41):
are you exercising for? Like all this other stuff, like
taunting me non stop. If I went to a journalist
to say, you know, the day after George Floyd was murdered,
I saw a white officer in our prison lay hands
on a black woman. You know, don't tell me that's
not what was on her mind, you know. And every
(46:03):
time I tried to help somebody, they shit on me.
When I became violent, when I was buying drugs, when
I was getting caught up with my girlfriend, they left
me alone. The worse I acted, the more personal space I.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
Got that's interesting.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
It was always like, the wors I acted, the more.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
I got, Wow, what a horrible way to succeed in prison, you.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
Know, I mean I came out that summer. I was
a mess. I was a different person because I thought
the only.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
Way you went in and then you stayed in for
four and a half years, right, yes, And then they
told you three days before you're out of here? Did
you know that date was the countdown date?
Speaker 2 (46:43):
I knew about nine months out and then leading up
to it, COVID was going on. And they pulled me
aside about a month and a half before and they said,
you know, you're supposed to go to your halfway house
on May twenty sixth. However, they're only accepting people on
(47:03):
Wednesdays so that they can all do their COVID quarantine
on the same day of the week, right, they said,
So instead of letting you out maybe with a Thursday,
instead of letting you out the Wednesday before one day early,
we're keeping you till the next Wednesday.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
How infuriating.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
But I had to go on the phone and tell
my mom it's going to be another Wednesday. It's going
to be a whole week later.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
Now when you get out. Did they have a step
down program? Did they have some way to help you
with number one your addiction? Number two? Your PTSD R
bolimia was there? Was there any kind of structure set
up for you leaving prison to sort of help you
back into society.
Speaker 2 (47:43):
No, the constant harassment and re traumatization did not end
at the prison. At the halfway house, I was promised
to be released a home confinement on an ACLE monitor
within a week, and then the day before they said, oh,
that's not an option for you anymore, because no reason given.
I lawyered up and we started asking questions, and then
(48:07):
at three pm the day before, on a Tuesday, they said,
you can only go home if you can have somebody
pick you up tomorrow morning before nine am. And I said,
I'm reality fucking winner, like done, Like.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
I was gonna say, you should have called me. I
would have come and got you if you would have
called me.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
You know, so you know it. That was hard enough.
And then I get the INKLE monitor on and we
go home. These people have my home addressed. This is
the federal government. My INKLE monitors not syncing up with
their system. And I called them and they're like, we
can't find your house on the map.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
It's not my fault.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
And they said, the inkle monitor's not working. You can
come back and get another or and I said, or
we can keep trying. And you know what I mean
with the way these institutions close at five pm, I
was like, do but if we go back, they're not.
Speaker 1 (49:01):
Letting me out all right. I wouldn't go back.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
So my dad actually did an apple pin and he
sent them the exact coordinance, like we had to give
the government exact coordinance so they could sink the ankle monitor.
And then even then the ankle monitor would continue to buzz.
And then for six straight months, you cannot miss a
phone call, right, you have to keep that phone on
(49:25):
you in the shower. But every time you start to
shake and you throw up and you get scared.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
Of course, how could you not to have all of
this had happened and what you lived through. I mean,
how are you doing now? I read something or I
saw you in an interview where you talked about feeling
ashamed of how hard it is to be clean, and
I thought, why would you be ashamed of that? Honey,
You're at least doing it right.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
Yeah, I mean, my father was an addict, and I
spent so much of my formative years in my adult
early adulthood just like wondering why he couldn't just do
it for us. And when I decided to get clean
in that prison with a roommate that was still using
and still had plenty of access to it, I didn't
(50:11):
understand why it was so hard, especially when I wasn't
even using an addictive substance. I just have an OCD
repetitive brain function, right, you know, it's part of like
the bolimia.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
Right, Intrusive thoughts, intrusive thoughts.
Speaker 2 (50:29):
Intrusive thoughts, yeah, and patterns, you know. So I was
kind of like, you know, I just spent four years
in a patriot dish of understanding what our country gets
wrong about addiction, And here I am been like I
should have fixed this, and now I can't. And I'm
going home in six months and I can't go home
(50:50):
like this? Why is this so hard?
Speaker 1 (50:53):
You are out, now you're off probation, and how are
you doing it this moment?
Speaker 2 (50:57):
I am on probation.
Speaker 1 (50:59):
Oh, I thought you were just off.
Speaker 2 (51:01):
No, I am stuck with a ten pm to six
am curfew, random drug tests and monthly reporting till November
twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (51:11):
How would you say you're doing in your life? What
kind of work are you doing? Are you able to
say that or just be vague with us?
Speaker 2 (51:17):
Yes, I am. I'm living the dream. I coach CrossFit
full time great yep, And then in my personal life,
I do CrossFit and I compete acrossfit. You know, we're
kind of running a dog rescue now. We just got
a new chihuahua with a broken leg. But we're in
the process of learning how to run a ranch. And
(51:38):
I have a lot of I have a lot of
hope for the future. I know that right now, it's
still while I have these probation conditions, can't leave the
southern part of Texas. I'm using that as my insulation,
my time to be self indulgent, my time to pretend
like I'm an athlete.
Speaker 1 (51:56):
You are an athlete reality, don't take that away from yourself.
Well you are that, and I hope that you have
found a way to quote unquote forgive yourself. Although what
I thought about what you did was righteous, brave and courageous,
patriotic and fan fuckingtastic. I really did. I you know
you are going to go down in history as a hero.
(52:17):
And when this horrible time is over and twenty four
and you're able to go speak about whatever it is
you want to speak about, I would love to interview
you again when you have all the stuff that you
know you might not be able to say now, but
you survived it. And I remember sending you books, being
so frustrated that that's all you could send were books
(52:38):
through Amazon. I thought, how did Amazon get that deal
with all of prisons in America right that all the
purchase How did they do that everything that you send
has to go through Amazon? Listen, I support you, I
always will, I always have. I think you're fantastic. I
think that your service to this country is unparalleled. And
I want to thank you for being so brave and
(53:01):
doing what few people would have the courage to do
in the name of truth and in the name of
the American way.
Speaker 2 (53:07):
Well, thank you for your support. And I mean, like
I said, big shout out for you know, being there
for my mom. You know she says Hi, yes, And
I mean you that's the most important thing in the
whole entire world for me, is just making sure my
mom is proud and that she feels supported. You know,
I did a stupid thing. I threw my life under
(53:28):
the bus. I didn't mean to drag her with me
and anybody like you that reaches out to her, y'all
are my heroes.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
Well, I'm going to put her instagram on my Instagram
feed and maybe people can reach out and tell her
what they think of how she parented you through this crisis.
I think it was pretty astonishing, really astonishing, and I
look up to her as a parent because you know
what she did, I would hope to have the courage
to do myself.
Speaker 2 (53:54):
Thank you for that.
Speaker 1 (53:55):
Hey, Reality Winner, You're the greatest. And I'm glad that
we're still in Ton, and I'm glad that you could
do this podcast. And I hope to talk to you
again soon.
Speaker 2 (54:04):
Can't wait.
Speaker 1 (54:05):
All right, honey, take care of yourself. Well, I hope
you guys found that as fascinating as I do. I
don't know. I think she's somebody that America should know
(54:25):
about and should know what happened to her when Trump
and Jeff Sessions tried to make an example out of
her and really almost succeeded in ruining and taking her
life as she was serving that time, in jail, and
we have no time for questions this week, but we'll
be back next week with Belinda Carlisle. Enjoy your July
fourth celebration. God bless America and onward, everyone onward.
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