After a year of duking it out in federal court over allegations that she leaked top-secret government intelligence, former National Security Agency contractor Reality Winner has agreed to a plea deal. 
 
 “I do know that she has always been ready and willing to accept responsibility for any wrongdoing, and that she will accept the consequences,” her mother, Billie Winner-Davis, told The Atlanta-Journal Constitution on Thursday. 
 
 Documents show the agreement was received by the court on Thursday after an 18-minute conference call on Wednesday with U.S. Magistrate Judge Brian Epps. 
 
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 Winner-Davis, who has maintained a social media presence highlighting her daughter’s case, said she has spoken only briefly to Reality’s attorneys about the change in plea, and only in guarded terms. She said she did not know what charges her daughter would plead to or what the negotiated punishment would be. 
 
 Reality Winner will accept responsibility for any wrongdoing & is ready to accept the consequences. We will continue to support her. She is a true patriot & hero. 
 
 Reality Winner Reaches Plea Deal With Government Over Leaked Document https://t.co/E23gQI2hEz via @DailyReport — Billie J. Winner-Davis (@bjwinnerdavis) June 21, 2018 
 
 Charged under the federal Espionage Act, Winner faced 10 years in prison and $250,000 in fines. Her trial had been scheduled for Oct. 15. 
 
 Winner, a 26-year-old former U.S. Air Force linguist who grew up in rural Texas, is accused of leaking a top-secret government report about Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. At the time, she worked as an NSA contractor at Fort Gordon, near Augusta. The Intercept, the online news outlet that allegedly received the document, has since admitted some fault in its handling of the leaked report, which court records say led investigators to Winner’s door. 
 
 Winner’s case has attracted international attention, garnering impassioned support from the left and rebuke from the right. Since her arrest, her family and an assortment of support groups have waged a protracted battle in the court of public opinion, speaking out to news reporters, penning articles in The Intercept, and operating the site StandWithReality.org. 
 
 Earlier this month, the federal judge who would have presided in her case admonished attorneys not to speak publicly about the case after a billboard went up in the Augusta suburbs portraying Winner as an imprisoned hero and the federal government as her oppressor. 
 
 Winner-Davis speculated that the Espionage Act — which takes only the underlying act of leaking into account, not motive or mitigating circumstances — was too difficult to fight. Her daughter’s legal team suffered one defeat after another in rulings handed down by the judge, and Epps declined to release Winner from jail while her charges were pending. 
 
 “I’m not happy about it,” Winner-Davis said of the plea deal. “I still feel like the espionage charge is wrong. I feel like it’s harsh. I feel like it doesn’t allow a defendant to defend themselves.” 
 
 Whatever happens in court next week, she said she will continue to fight to clear her daughter’s name: “Regardless of what she’s been charged with, she’s not a traitor to this country.” 
 
 One of Winner’s attorneys, Titus Nichols, declined to comment other than to confirm a change of plea hearing is scheduled for Tuesday. A federal prosecutor also declined to comment. 
 
 This will mark the second guilty plea in Trump’s anti-leak drive. In April, former FBI Special Agent Terry Albury pleaded guilty to one count of making an unauthorized disclosure of national defense information and one count of unlawful retention of national defense information. He faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison per count. 
 
 Under President Barack Obama’s administration, leak cases often ended with pleas to minor offenses. A former NSA official in 2011 pleaded guilty in Maryland to one misdemeanor count of exceeding his authorized use of an NSA computer. The Justice Department agreed to drop 10 more serious previous criminal charges against Thomas Drake, who was sentenced to probation. He was accused of discussing classified information with a Baltimore Sun newspaper reporter. That reporter wrote stories about problems with NSA’s secret surveillance programs. 
 
 In 2012, former CIA officer/counter-terrorism official John Kiriakou pleaded guilty to a single charge of disclosing classified information to a journalist. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison after being accused of identifying an undercover operative involved in the use of waterboarding during the Bush administration. He says he was sent to prison for revealing torture. 
 
 In 2015, retired Gen. and former CIA director David H. Petraeus pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified materials and was sentenced to 2 years of probation and a $100,000 fine. He admitted giving handwritten journals with classified information to his mistress and then lying about it to the FBI. He had been charged with felonies but refused to plead guilty. 
 
 In 2016, Gen. James E. Cartwright, who was vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his discussions with reporters about Iran’s nuclear program. Obama pardoned him in January 2017, just before Trump took office. ||||| In this June 6, 2017 image made from video, Billie Winner-Davis, left, the mother of Reality Leigh Winner, and her stepfather Gary Davis, speak to media about their daughter in east Augusta, Ga. Winner... (Associated Press) 
 
 AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) — A federal judge ordered a young woman charged with leaking classified U.S. documents to remain jailed until her trial after prosecutors argued Thursday she might possess more stolen government secrets. 
 
 Prosecutors also said 25-year-old Reality Winner might try to flee the U.S. if released on bond. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Solari told the judge Winner had written in a notebook: "I want to burn the White House Down ... find somewhere in Kurdistan to live. Ha-ha!" 
 
 Wearing an orange jumpsuit and leg shackles, Winner pleaded not guilty in U.S. district court to charges that she illegally retained and transmitted national defense information. The federal crime carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison if she's convicted. 
 
 The former Air Force linguist, who speaks Arabic and Farsi and had a top-secret security clearance, was working as a government contractor in Augusta when she copied and mailed a classified report containing top-secret material to an online news organization, prosecutors say. 
 
 Authorities haven't described the report or named the news outlet. But the Justice Department announced Winner's arrest Monday as The Intercept reported it had obtained a classified National Security Agency report suggesting Russian hackers attacked a U.S. voting software supplier before last year's presidential election. The NSA report was dated May 5, the same as the document Winner is charged with leaking. 
 
 Prosecutors warned U.S. Magistrate Judge Brian Epps that Winner might have more stolen secrets. Solari said investigators have learned Winner inserted a portable hard drive in a top-secret Air Force computer before she left the military last year. She said authorities don't know what happened to the drive or what was on it. 
 
 Solari said Winner's laptop also contained software that could enable her to access online black-markets and buy items — such as a fake ID or passport — without revealing her identity or location. 
 
 "We don't know how much more she knows and how much more she remembers," Solari said. "But we do know she's very intelligent. So she's got a lot of valuable information in her head." 
 
 Winner's mother and stepfather told the judge she had no criminal history and they would use their 20-acre home in Kingsville, Texas, to finance her bond with confidence she would never run. 
 
 "Because my client is a millennial and she knows how to use technology, that's somehow proof of evil intent," said Titus Nichols, Winner's defense attorney. "The government is scraping and clawing to build a mountain out of a molehill." 
 
 Solari argued that Winner isn't the upstanding young woman her parents believe her to be. She said that during one of her jailhouse phone calls, which were recorded, Winner said she planned to "play that card: being pretty, white and cute." 
 
 The judge said he was worried about what happened to the portable hard drive prosecutors mentioned, as well as references Winner had made in her notebook about the Middle East. He also mentioned her written comment about burning the White House. 
 
 "Whether that's a jest or not, it still concerns me," Epps said. 
 
 Solari cautioned that prosecutors were not trying to link Winner to terrorism. 
 
 "The government is not in any way suggesting the defendant has become a jihadist or that she is a Taliban sympathizer," Solari told the judge. 
 
 An FBI affidavit says Winner confessed to copying and mailing the classified report when agents searched her home last Saturday. They seized items including cellphones, computers and Winner's passport. 
 
 Solari said Winner also confessed to her mother during a recorded jailhouse phone call, saying: "Mom, those documents. I screwed up." ||||| Intelligence contractor Reality Leigh Winner pleaded not guilty to charges that she leaked a classified National Security Agency report to the media on June 8, and was denied bail. Winner faces up to 10 years in prison, if convicted. (Reuters) 
 
 A federal judge on Thursday denied bail to Reality Leigh Winner, the 25-year-old Georgia woman accused of leaking classified information to the media, after prosecutors argued she remains a flight risk, a threat to the public and could possibly leak more government documents. 
 
 Winner, a National Security Agency contractor and former Air Force linguist, pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court to a federal charge of gathering, transmitting or losing defense information, a felony offense under the Espionage and Censorship Act, according to the Associated Press. 
 
 She is the first person charged with leaking classified information during the Trump administration, which has called repeatedly for investigations into media reports on leaked intelligence. If convicted, Winner could face up to 10 years in prison. 
 
 Authorities have not identified the contents of the leaked paperwork or named the news outlet that received it, but the charges were made public Monday, shortly after the Intercept published a story about an NSA report on Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election. 
 
 [The easy trail that led the feds to Reality Winner, alleged source of NSA leak] 
 
 At the bail hearing Thursday, prosecutors told U.S. Magistrate Judge Brian Epps that they had uncovered additional information, including what they described as “disturbing” notebook entries, that made Winner a flight risk and danger to the public if she is released before trial. 
 
 “We don’t know how much more she knows and how much more she remembers,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Solari said, reported the AP. “But we do know she’s very intelligent. So she’s got a lot of valuable information in her head.” 
 
 
 
 Reality Winner exits the Augusta Courthouse on June 8 in Augusta, Ga. (Sean Rayford/Getty Images) 
 
 Solari told the judge that Winner may be in possession of more top-secret intelligence. While still serving in the Air Force, Winner inserted a portable hard drive into a military computer, Solari said investigators have learned, according to the AP. Authorities don’t know what was saved to the drive or where it is now. 
 
 Comments Solari said Winner wrote in a notebook also concerned the judge: “I want to burn the White House Down … find somewhere in Kurdistan to live. Ha-ha!” 
 
 Prosecutors said they also found the names of three known Islamist extremists in Winner’s notebook, reported Reuters. As an Air Force linguist, Winner learned to speak Arabic and Farsi. She served for six years and worked with a unit of Afghans, which brought her joy, her parents told the Huffington Post. 
 
 Solari said prosecutors were not trying to link her to terrorism, however. 
 
 “The government is not in any way suggesting the defendant has become a jihadist or that she is a Taliban sympathizer,” Solari told the judge, according to the AP. 
 
 As The Washington Post previously reported, Winner had recently moved to Augusta, Ga., after taking a job with security subcontractor Pluribus International. There, she taught yoga, practiced CrossFit and tweeted about her agitation with President Trump. 
 
 Winner, dressed in an orange jumpsuit, spoke little during the hearing except to enter her plea. 
 
 Solari said in court Thursday that Winner had admitted to FBI agents after her arrest Saturday that she shared the classified report, reported CNN. 
 
 Winner told authorities, according to Solari, that she was “mad about what she had recently seen in the media” and that she “wanted to set the facts right,” CNN reported. Solari also said that Winner confessed to her mother during a recorded phone call from jail that she “screwed up.” 
 
 [What we know about Reality Winner, the contractor accused of leaking an NSA document] 
 
 Repeating many of the same pleas they’ve made during media interviews this week, Winner’s parents told the judge their daughter was a patriot and upstanding citizen who posed no danger to the United States. They offered to pay Winner’s bond with their 20-acre home in Texas and assured the judge she wouldn’t flee if released. 
 
 “Your honor, my daughter is a good girl,” Winner’s stepfather, Gary Davis, told the judge, according to Reuters. “She will do whatever you tell her to do if you grant her bond.” 
 
 
 
 Billie Winner-Davis and her husband, Gary Davis, parents of accused NSA leaker Reality Leigh Winner, arrive at the U.S. District Courthouse Thursday. (Chris Aluka Berry/European Pressphoto Agency) 
 
 But ultimately, the judge denied the request, citing her notebook musings on the Middle East and comment about burning down the White House as unsettling. 
 
 “Whether that’s a jest or not, it still concerns me,” the judge said, according to the AP. 
 
 Winner’s attorney, Titus Nichols, said in court that his client’s status as a technology savvy millennial is being used unfairly against her. 
 
 “The government is scraping and clawing to build a mountain out of a molehill,” Nichols said, reported the AP. 
 
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– More than a year after her arrest, Reality Leigh Winner is pleading guilty. The former NSA contractor—who allegedly supplied the media with secret intel on Russians hacking US voting systems—planned to enter her plea agreement Friday in federal court, Engadget reports. "I do know that she has always been ready and willing to accept responsibility for any wrongdoing, and that she will accept the consequences," her mother Billie Winnie Davis says in a statement. The 26-year-old Air Force veteran was denied bail and spent a year in jail after the Intercept ran a bombshell NSA report detailing Russian hacking of a voting equipment vendor and attempts to hack 122 local election officials. Emails obtained through FOIA requests show that local officials didn't know about the hack until it leaked to the press. But as Winner became a political lightning rod, she lost several court battles and faced 10 years behind bars and a $250,000 fine for espionage, the Atlanta-Journal Constitution reports. Now comes her guilty plea, which remains under wraps. "I still disagree strongly with the use of the Espionage charge against citizens" like Reality, her mother says. "The use of the Espionage charge prevents a person from defending themselves or explaining their actions to a jury, thus making it difficult for them to receive a fair trial and treatment in the court system." (Per one report, 39 states saw Russians intrude on US elections.)