Once upon a time, two people who were expecting a child decided that they would curse the child forever in a way that would distinguish her from all others in her realm. They decided that they would give her a name that would be the nominal equivalent of an earworm -- no one would forget it.
It was 25 years ago, not in fairyland, and Mr. and Mrs. Winner chose to name their child "Reality."
I don't know what her friends call her, or if she has any friends left, given that she is in Federal custody as I write this. Or, since she was a Bernie Sanders type, if any of her friends were even worth having, since if they were Bernicules, their hands would be in your pocket constantly.
That, of course, is the least of her worries.
As you are probably aware, the young lady, who was a Georgia-based employee of Pluribus International, an Alexandria, VA-based Federal contractor, is now in the hoosegow, charged with leaking classified information to the press. Apparently she came across a document in her classified facility in Georgia, concerning the investigation into Russians tinkering with the 2016 election.
This document may or may not have had something to do with the story this week that the Russians were trying to hack a manufacturer of election-counting equipment. It was reported all over the place, so I suppose I can mention it.
Before it was reported, though, it appears to have materialized in that facility, whereupon it was copied six times, including once in Georgia. The person who copied it then released it by emailing it to a news website, quite illegally. The website published it, but also reported the leak to authorities, who put two and two together and that led them to Reality Winner, the only person in Georgia who had copied the classified material.
Of course, she compounded her exposure by communicating with the news site on her work email, making her a candidate for the Darwin Awards. That was not the brightest tack to take right there, but again, at age 25 those cubbyholes just aren't there quite yet.
Young Reality had a top-secret clearance (the operative word being "had") and had a real, pathological aversion to Donald Trump. Now I know that it is not the Defense Security Service's job to go out there proactively and read the Facebook posts -- and the vile tweets directly to President Trump -- but you would have liked to have thought that someone who did see them and knew she had a clearance might have mentioned something to someone, you know?
Fortunately, however, fewer people died as a result of the leak than in Benghazi or Chappaquiddick, and we probably have even more assurance now that the Russians were 100% unsuccessful in their attempt to influence the election. Hillary Clinton did far more to tank her chances, all by her lonesome, than any Russian did -- since they did absolutely nothing that actually influenced it.
I don't know what will come of all this, but I'm hoping. After all, Reality Winner is charged with that selfsame violation that good old James Comey decided not to prosecute Hillary Clinton for, using the notion (completely outside his jurisdiction, BTW) that no one had ever been charged under that U.S.Code section before. Well, the Trump Justice Department doesn't operate that way, and young Reality is going to face a judge or a jury pretty soon.
So when I say "I'm hoping", I mean that I hope that charging Reality Winner means that we can charge everyone who has been caught leaking classified material to the press or mishandling it, whether intentionally or not. I mean, the statute of limitations hasn't run out on Hillary, has it? And, by the way, how is that investigation over at the FBI of the Clinton Foundation going?
Just asking.
Copyright 2017 by Robert Sutton
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