ON THURSDAY, A FEDERAL judge denied a second request for bail from Reality Winner, a former National Security Agency contractor accused of violating the Espionage Act, despite an admission from the federal prosecutor in charge of the case that the government relied on false information in Winner’s initial bail hearing.
In his decision denying bail, Judge Brian Epps did not acknowledge or reference the prosecutor’s false statements, despite the statement having been a principal reason the defense moved for the renewed hearing.
The fight over whether Winner should be released pending trial stemmed from her bail hearing shortly after she was indicted in June. Winner was initially denied bail partly on the basis of alleged jailhouse recordings that suggested she may have other classified documents that she wanted to make public.
Relying on the FBI’s descriptions of the calls, the prosecutor told the judge on June 9 that Winner discussed having multiple classified “documents” (plural) beyond the document she allegedly released. When the prosecutor finally did listen to the recording herself — after the judge had already denied bail — she admitted that Winner did not use the plural “documents” in the phone call, but only referred to one “document.”
https://theintercept.com/2017/10/06/nsa-reality-winner-judge-denies-bail/