The Religious Life of Reality Winner, the Gen Z whistleblower who exposed Russian interference in U.S. elections
Reality Winner speaks to visitors through a phone in a Ft. Worth prison. Photo by Courage to Resist, an organization formed to advocate for her release.
Keith Golden was preparing to teach a yoga class as part of his teacher training in Pikesville, Md. in September 2014. This was his first time teaching this particular time slot, but he was familiar with the studio. He expected his class to be full of familiar faces.
What he remembers about that day is one stranger: a slender, blonde woman with tattoos across the span of her shoulders who had unrolled her mat quietly at the front corner of the class. He says her way of being struck him instantly.
“She wasn't trying to please anybody,” Golden said. “She didn't seem to be self conscious. She didn't seem to be in need of talking to anybody. She didn't seem to need anybody's attention. She just wanted to be in the front corner and practice and leave.”
The woman was Reality Winner, at the time a 23-year-old fitness aficionado and an Air Force veteran turned analyst with a private sector intelligence firm that did contract work with U.S. government agencies. What came next in her life was something Golden says he never would have expected.
Winner was arrested on June 3, 2017 for leaking a five-page NSA report about Russian involvement in the 2016 election. She had downloaded the report onto her work computer and leaked it to The Intercept which failed to protect Winner’s identity. The leaked report was the first piece of concrete evidence that Russia tried to hack U.S. voter systems, and Winner’s case was the first criminal leak case to be prosecuted under the Trump administration. She pled guilty to a felony charge in 2018, accepted a gag order and was sentenced to five years and three months in prison.
Today, Winner hopes for a judge to give her “compassionate release” before she completes her sentence. A vocal group of supporters are active on Twitter daily to promote her name and story, highlighting instances when Winner’s religious relics have been taken away during her imprisonment.
She is currently an inmate at Carswell FMC, an all-female medical prison in Fort Worth, Texas.
According to the Bureau of Prisons (BOP), Winner will be released on Nov. 23, 2021.
At a Nov. 17 hearing in Atlanta, where Winner was originally tried, her lawyers argued that judges should be able to grant release in the absence of a BOP decision; no ruling has been made yet on whether she will be granted compassionate release.
“There is a very minute chance that the appeals court could grant release,” said Billie Winner-Davis, Reality’s mother. “But her team believes that if they get a win, the appeals court will force the district judge in Georgia to grant her a hearing on the compassionate release filing.”
A number of celebrities and political figures have vocally supported Winner, including actor Mark Hamill, former presidential candidate Marianne Williamson, evangelical talk show host Eric Metaxas, comedian Rosie O’Donnell, actor John Cusack and others.
Even President Donald Trump mentioned her — though not by name — in a tweet. “Gee, this is ‘small potatoes’ compared to what Hillary Clinton did!” Trump said. He went on to call it a “Double Standard.” Trump nor his administration have suggested she will receive a pardon or lessening of her sentence.
Most recently, ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen has said he’ll look personally into the case and use his platform to promote her.
Dr. David Dark, an author and professor at Belmont University in Nashville, is one of Winner’s biggest online supporters: he tweets daily support of her, often tagging celebrities or politicians to encourage them to speak in support of Winner, too.
“I'm not sure what would have become of Reality without Twitter,” Dark said. “It is my global microphone with which you can address people and tag people — and I don't want to say shame people, but you can publicly put questions to them. And at least theoretically, they have seen that question. They might not click it with a like. But it's visible.”
Dark became aware of Winner’s story when the news of her arrest broke and was quickly sympathetic for her cause: “I have deep affection for whistleblowers,” he said.
But Winner fascinated him beyond that.
“The name Reality Winner sounds like it's in a Kurt Vonnegut novel or a Thomas Pynchon thing,” Dark said. “She doesn't fit easily in any of the compartments with which we divide the issues of our day. And she fits really easily in all of them.”
A “Real Winner”
Reality Winner — named because her father wanted “a real winner,” Winner-Davis said — was raised in Ricardo, Texas, a rural area about 125 miles north of the Mexico border.
Winner-Davis has a degree in social work and worked for Child Protective Services from the time Reality was born until a few years ago.
“My kids went with me everywhere,” she said.
This meant that both Winner and her older sister Brittany were exposed to members of their community in need: they often participated in making baskets of needed items at holidays and attended other community events. They continued to volunteer throughout high school of their own volition.
“It became as important to them as it was to me to make sure that you know you did better for your community and that you were a positive change,” Winner-Davis said.
The Winners lived on a 20 acre plot of land and weren’t afforded many luxuries. But they never understood what it was like to not have basic necessities.
And although the family went to church frequently — first to an Episcopal church and later to a Lutheran church — Brittany says her family’s faith in God manifests itself mostly in their actions.
“I think that it plays a big role, kind of underneath the surface,” she said. “It's not out, front and center. It's not really obvious, but the things that we do as a family and the things that we value and treasure are completely in line.”
Winner attended Epiphany Episcopal Montessori School starting at age 3.
She thrived here, using the school’s method of independent learning modules to accelerate ahead of her classmates. Her mother remembers being aware of how intelligent Winner was as early as 4 years old.
“I remember the Spanish teacher coming to me and asking me if somebody in our family was from Mexico or from a Spanish-speaking country,” Winner-Davis said, “because she said she had never seen anyone pick it up so fast. Everything, you know, her pronunciation and her accent, everything was perfect.”
For Winner to be zealous about her schoolwork wasn’t unusual. She seemed to have a knack for picking up lessons and had a strong desire to learn.
The two sisters were academically competitive, but they share a whole host of other interests: namely, because of their dad, they have an interest in ancient civilizations and cultures, and they each have a deep love of animals. They still quote Spongebob to each other regularly.
Winner continued pursuing languages in high school when she decided she wanted to join the AirForce — like her older step brother — as a linguist. She began teaching herself to read and write Arabic.
Winner was 9 years old when the World Trade Center towers were destroyed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks; she had a desire to be in the Middle East over anywhere else, as she believed it was the most important place she could be.
“It really woke her up,” Winner-Davis said. “I saw her wake up to understand that there was a bigger world out there. And so I think that she felt that this was an opportunity. This was a way for her to learn the language and to actually help.”
Before her arrest, Winner was an advocate of political conversations. She posted on her Instagram about meeting with U.S. Sen. David Perdue, R-Georgia, with the hashtag #climatechangeisreal. Her Twitter was a space to talk about climate change, #BlackLivesMatter and criticize Donald Trump.
Winner served active duty in the Air Force from 2010 to 2016 as a cryptologic language analyst, specializing in Arabic languages as she’d wanted. The Air Force Times reported that she had received the Air Force Commendation Medal in this time period.
The last place she was stationed was Fort Meade in Maryland before being honorably discharged.
“A body for ideals”
Golden says it’s normal for him to look up his “movement” students on Facebook to send them a friend request. But he couldn’t find Winner when they met in 2014. He didn’t think much of it at the time; several of his students don’t have Facebook because of their jobs or other factors. He just moved on to the next friend request.
A few months later, he received a friend request from a “Reezlie Winner” — Winner told him that the website hadn’t believed her name was real, and she’d been forced to come up with something different.
After that, the two began to exchange emails and go to occasional meals together. Winner asked questions in classes about certain stretches and exercises.
Golden says she was no different in their personal conversations. Winner was always consuming information and talking about it in-depth with her friends and family. Together, they talked about everything from fitness to climate change, religion and geopolitics.
In class, he praised her stamina. Winner would, on occasion, run a half marathon in the morning with Athletes Serving Athletes — then come to class and complete everything as though she’d just woken up.
And in their friendship, Golden says he was shown a whole new side to the quiet girl he’d first known Winner to be.
Keith Golden and Reality Winner. Photo courtesy of Golden.
“Have you ever been around cats? How they're like, ‘You can see me in the room. Don't come over to me. I'll let you know when it's your time to be a friend,’” Golden said. “[Reality’s] got two sides. She's got ‘I like you’ or ‘I don't know you, let's keep it like that.’ I don't mean to say Reezlie is as hardcore as my cat, but it is my guess.”
After leaving the Air Force, Reality worked for Pluribus International Corporation (which has since been acquired by METIS Solutions), a contractor for several security, military, defence and intelligence communities.
She lived in a small apartment in Augusta, Ga. that Brittany says was intentionally sparsely furnished. There was a couch and a bed, but no dinner table or extra chairs. And she never used the air conditioning, believing it damaged the environment and was an unnecessary luxury.
Among the few things that decorated this apartment were various religious relics. The Ayat al-Kursi — from the 2nd surah of the Quran, which speaks about the greatness of Allah and is often used to ward off evil — was ornately framed and displayed on her wall.
She also had a Palm Sunday cross from her local Episcopal church, which she attended frequently, and a statue of the Hindu god Ganesh.
“My daughter has studied many religions and takes what is meaningful to her,” Winner-Davis said, “what helps to keep her strong and spiritual.”
“She really kind of lives in a body for ideals,” Brittany said.
Winner said in her interview with the FBI (after denying leaking any information several times) that once she printed out the documents, she snuck them out of the building in her pantyhose.
She then mailed them to The Intercept, a publication dedicated to in-depth investigative journalism. The Intercept has been accused of carelessness in reporting the story, as they sent the leaked document to the NSA and published it online — with hopes to verify the report — with marks that identified where the document was printed from, and which led the FBI straight to Winner as the suspect. Although the The Intercept acknowledged mistakes in how it handled the story, it’s Pulitzer Prize-winning founding editor, Glenn Greenwald, left the site recently in frustration.
The article detailing the report, not mentioning Winner by name, was published two days after her arrest.
Winner was held in a local jail in Georgia for a year while prosecutors were building her case; Winner-Davis took an early retirement from her CPS job and moved to live in Winner’s home in Augusta in order to be close to her throughout the process. Reality did not receive bond throughout her time in jail.
It was here that she met Wendy Collins for the first time. Collins, who has over 30,000 followers on Twitter under the name “#CompassionateRelease4Reality,” is one of Reality’s biggest social media advocates.
Collins was in between work in 2017, and was looking to get involved with local politics because of the confusion the 2016 election left her in.
She says she first saw Reality Winner when her mugshot was shown on TV.
“I see this beautiful young woman who reminds me of my daughter, and it caught my attention,” she said. “And then like, I just, I couldn't get her off my mind. It was, like, I somehow knew her.”
They began writing to each other, and Collins drove to visit her in Georgia more than once. After finding out the jail didn’t accommodate Winner’s diet, she worked with a local church to provide fresh fruits and vegetables to all of the inmates.
“She calls me her fairy godmother,” Collins said. “You know, I'm supposed to fix things.”
After Winner pleaded guilty, in her transfer to Carswell FMC, she spent some time at Baker County jail in northern Florida.
Previously, one of Reality’s only possessions was her Bible; in this move to the Florida jail, it was taken away from her.
Winner-Davis was finally able to recover the Bible after sending a money order to pay for shipping, and it’s now in her possession.
“She took notes in it,” Dark said. “It was a very valuable object to her. I know that there are totems and any number of objects that are considered religious objects, and which are the right of anyone within the United States to have access to. I think it's worth focusing on, given the emphasis on religious liberty that is bandied about in our national popular discourse.”
Carswell FMC and the spread of COVID-19
Winner has been incarcerated at Carswell FMC since — and has encountered no shortage of problems while there, particularly as COVID-19 has spread across the country.
Federal prisons, including Carswell, were placed on lockdown on March 31 to prevent the spread of the virus. Prisoners are not allowed to receive in-person visitors, and for some time were not allowed to use phones or email. They were not allowed to go outside for recreation or work their traditional jobs — instead, the women were confined to their cells of four to 10 people all day. Most meals that were served were bologna sandwiches in sack lunches.
Winner suffered under these conditions, Winner-Davis says.
“I’ve seen the light go out,” Winner-Davis said. “She doesn’t have a lot of hope. There are times where I’ve actually heard her say that she’s not worthy.”
Winner-Davis has filed complaints with the BoP for some of the conditions during the COVID-19 lockdown: on some occasions, prison guards were running up and down the halls for exercise while the women were confined to their cells.
As a vegan, Winner doesn’t eat most of the food provided to her. She normally teaches a yoga and movement class at the Rec Center, takes college classes and participates in Bible studies; the lack of work or ability to move has dampened her spirit.
Many of the non-violent inmates, Winner included, asked to be released on temporary home confinement, an initiative encouraged by Attorney General William Barr. But very few inmates — less than 1% at the height of the lockdown in April — had their requests accepted.
As of early August, a fourth inmate had died in Carswell from COVID-19, 150 inmates had active cases and 392 others had recovered from the virus.
Winner tested positive for the virus in July. She told Winner-Davis that when she was given her positive test results, the guard congratulated her.
Now Winner has recovered from the virus, her mother says, and she is now able to use the phone again. Winner-Davis also notes that Reality has often asked her to help those she’s been imprisoned with, something that takes her “back to who she is.”
“I hope when she gets out she’s still maintained that sense of wanting to be a voice for everybody,” Winner-Davis said.
Additionally, Winner-Davis says Winner converted to Messianic Judaism about three years ago, and it’s a faith she practices to the best of her ability. Messianic Jews follow Jesus Christ and believe he is necessary for eternal salvation but syncretize many elements of Christianity with Judaism.
“She feels like it is the most pure of the Christian religion,” Winner-Davis said. “She feels like it hasn't been spoiled by humanity.”
Most recently, Winner-Davis says that Winner had her prayer oil taken from her after a fight broke out elsewhere in the prison.
“The guards came in and pepper sprayed the entire unit, and the following day they conducted a full shake down or search of the unit,” she said. “In the prison system contraband is anything that is not in its original container, approved by the facility, altered in any way or dangerous.”
The oil had been given to Winner by an ahman “way before COVID” and was “something that helped her,” but it wasn’t in its original container.
“So the staff did have the ‘right’ to take it,” Winner-Davis said. “It's just another incident in which my daughter has been beaten down.”
“Having your things searched routinely and taken from you is yet another reminder of how powerless you are in the system,” she added.
The treatment Winner has received while incarcerated inspired Winner-Davis to take a job at a detention center, so she could better understand what her daughter was experiencing. She’s made it her mission to help the prisoners she encounters daily.
“I will call them ‘Mr.’ or ‘Ms,’” she said. “That’s not something they’re used to. I make sure that if I can help them with something, I will. They all know that if all else fails, to ask for Davis.”
She tears up as she talks about the dehumanization of prisoners she so frequently sees, and says that if she can treat them like people — with kindness — she will have done her job to the best of her ability.
“And I think, ‘if I’m not there, who would be there?’” she said.
Golden says he and Winner have a deeper connection in some ways since she’s been imprisoned.
The one time he visited her in prison before COVID-19 lockdowns, he says they sat for three hours eating pretzels and Famous Amos cookies and drinking Snapple from the vending machine and talking. There was nothing to distract them — phones aren’t allowed, and neither was much movement — so Golden says he was focused fully on Winner.
And he’s helped her in her desire to practice fitness to the best of her ability.
“There's no internet in prison,” Golden said. “She has been like, ‘go to this website, go to this teacher. Find this particular CrossFit workout and paste it into an email and send it to me because I need to do that workout.’”
Being the hands and feet
Winner’s family is looking forward to her release so they’ll get to spend time with her that isn’t a prison or have a conversation without knowing someone is listening.
Brittany, who is pregnant with her first child, says she’s excited for Winner to meet her niece and play an active role in her life.
Beyond that, Winner will pursue some of her greatest passions: justice and fitness.
“She’s said that when she gets out, she’s going to be a person who fights for equality in our justice system and in our prison reform,” Winner-Davis said. “More and more, I’m thinking of how we can begin. I can’t wait for her to be out so we can brainstorm where we go from here.”
She paused to laugh.
“If she wants to take me along.”
“She's a climate activist,” Collins said. “And she talks a lot about restoring the mangroves in her area.”
Brittany says Winner has told her about the desire to open a fitness center of her own once she’s released from prison. She describes it as a retreat center where people can come and escape the world to learn about fitness and nutrition and practice it.
“She wants to share the inner peace that she has and help people focus on things that really matter,” Brittany said.
She says she can’t see Winner “leading a rally or being a big speaker at a protest.” Her activism is tied to the quiet action Brittany says guides their faith.
“Our family I've always thought of as more like a mouthpiece for activism where we’re the hands and the feet,” Brittany said. “We work behind the scenes, and we like to see small changes being done that will snowball into bigger changes. And that's the kind of advocacy that I could see Reality doing through health and fitness.”
Jillian Cheney is a Poynter-Koch fellow for Religion Unplugged who loves consuming good culture and writing about it. She also reports on American Protestantism and Evangelical Christianity. You can find her on Twitter @_jilliancheney.