The MeidasTouch Podcast - Free Reality Winner: The Case to #BringRealityHome From Those Who Know Her Best

Episode Date: March 1, 2021

On June 3rd, 2017, a young woman from small town Texas named Reality Winner was arrested after leaking an intelligence report about Russian interference in the 2016 elections. The MeidasTouch brothers sit down for an exclusive interview with Reality’s mother, sister, and a #BringRealityHome advocate to tell the in-depth story of Reality’s life, from gifted student & decorated Air Force veteran to being imprisoned by the Trump Department of Justice. You can sign the Official Reality Winner Clemency Petition to President Biden here. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/meidastouch/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/meidastouch/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Welcome to a very special edition of the Midas Touch podcast. Ben Micellis here, joined by my younger brothers Brett Micellis and Jordy Micellis. And we have very special guests for you today, family members of Reality Winner. Now, you may have heard the name Reality Winner. You may not have heard the name Reality Winner. You may have heard the name Reality Winner in the context of Reality Winner needs to be freed.

But you asked yourselves, who is this Reality Winner? What's her story? And what took place. And so to get you that information, we have an incredible set of guests, Reality Winners family, starting with Billie Jean Winner Davis, Brittany Winner, and Wendy Collins. If you can all introduce yourselves, your relationship to Reality Winner, that would be incredible. Yes, hello. I'm Billy Winner Davis, and I am Reality's mom. I'm also Brittany's mom. I'm very proud of both of my daughters.

I want to thank you guys for having us on. I admire your work so much, and it's really an honor to talk with you today. Thank you so much. I'm Brittany Winner. I'm Reality Winner's older sister. I'm older than her by about 15 months. And so we're very close in age, very close before her ordeal and then even closer now that she's in prison and she doesn't have a lot of outside support other than her family day to day talking to her. So I'm really thankful to be here to talk about my sister and to explain why she needs to get out.

Hi, I'm Wendy Collins. I did not know the Winter family or reality, actually. I heard about reality's arrest and what was being said about this young woman, this United States Air Force veteran. And I think I felt like the way you might if you happened upon someone drowning and you just knew you had to dive in and try and help them. And I got involved. I'm a mom and I just there was something that that just made me want to help. And I've been here since the beginning. And so, Wendy, it's not a mistake, even though when I refer to you as family, you've become in many ways, it was accurate, you've become in many ways family to the winner family as you've battled with them to bring attention to what's taken place. So I want to start from the very beginning with Reality Winner's childhood. We'll start with you, Billie Winner. Can you tell me what it was like, what Reality Winner was like growing up and where did she grow up?

Yeah. Well, so Reality was born in Alice, Texas, which is South Texas, but she spent most of her childhood in Kings Alice, Texas, which is South Texas, but she spent most of her childhood in Kingsville, Texas. We live outside of Kingsville, Texas in a small rural community called Ricardo. That's where we still live. I still live in the home where she grew up, where Brittany grew up as well. Both of the girls were lucky enough to actually attend school in a small private Episcopal school setting from the age of three until I think Brittany went through to fifth grade. And so it was a very small setting. They got a lot of individual attention.

Both of the girls were extremely intelligent. I mean, off the charts intelligent, but both of them were very, very different. Reality was she has a lot of a very, a curiosity and learning. Even today, she just, she thrives on getting as much information that she can get and by exploring her world. And that's the way that she always was as a child, exploring her world, learning new languages, learning about new religions, just very inquisitive about everything. She was not a troublemaker at all, but she has a really fun and quirky sense of humor. She's kind of a prankster. In eighth grade, she was set to be valedictorian of her class, her graduating class for eighth

grade, but she was not allowed to walk the stage for her graduation because she orchestrated the biggest and worst food fight that the school has ever experienced. And that's who reality is, you know, they put her in a leadership role and she, you know, she made the best of it. And so, you know, I, you know, I was sad that she didn't get to walk the stage. She promised me that she would walk the stage at high school. But, and she, she did do that, tried to get out of it a couple times. But no, I made her keep to her promise that she would walk the stage.

She was, you know, involved in tennis, soccer, she was the athlete of the family, very athletic. She loves soccer. Her stepdad actually was her soccer coach for about three years. And so she was the one that really went into kind of the sports angle of things. And so, but, you know, just growing up, she was never a troublemaker. I never had to worry about either of my girls getting into any kind of trouble. They volunteered. I worked with Child Protective Services their entire life. And so anytime that there was an event, we were very involved in the community and doing things with regard to Child Protective Services and other

community events. And Reality was right alongside me for all of that and volunteered for her community and was always, you know, doing what she could. I know that when Katrina hit, you know, our community set up a shelter and it was a Sunday afternoon. We found out that they were setting up a shelter and right away Reality said, we need to go. We need to go help. And so we went to go help. And that's who she was growing up. Reality started teaching herself Arabic when she was a senior in high school. And she started ordering, you know, books and materials to teach herself Arabic and started putting, you know, like stickers all over the house, labeling things in Arabic. I still have, I still have stickers here at the house that haven't come off yet, for sentimental reasons. And, you know, she made the decision that she wanted to look at the military, because my oldest

stepson, he joined the Air Force, and he's a Russian linguist for the Air Force. And so she saw pretty much what he was able to do. And, you know, the way that the Air Force, you know, had taught him the language, and he had, you know, opportunities. And so she made the decision that she wanted to also join the Air Force, and wanted to be a Middle Eastern linguist. And she actually joined just prior to graduating from high school, but she was in a delayed entry program with the Air Force. And so she still had to go every weekend. She had to go for training and for classes, even though she wasn't in the actual, you

know, basic yet, but they had this delayed entry program where they actually, they start the training prior to them actually leaving. So the night that we took her over to Corpus Christi, and she was getting on the bus to go to basic training, which was at Lackland in San Antonio. Right before she gets ready to leave for the bus, that's when she takes the opportunity to tell me that she had actually been offered a full scholarship at a local university, Texas A&M University, for the engineering program. And she had been holding that secret, you know, the entire time, didn't want to tell me until she was getting ready to go on the bus for basic training. And I at that moment could not

have been more proud and more happy because I guess as a parent, I thought that maybe she was going off to the Air Force because her sister had gone to college. And I thought that maybe she didn't want to burden us with the costs of college and the cost of supporting her through it. But her telling me that she got that full ride was, you know, telling me that this was something that she chose to do, you know, and, and for me, that just, I was so proud of her in that moment. That's incredible. And so I'd be remiss if I didn't ask though, the name reality, with the last name winner. The background that name that is a name that I would more associate with, you know, Kanye West's child, the Northwest. How did the name Reality Winner come about? Because that intrigues me. I always want to blame her dad.

Okay. As mothers do. And it was him. It was him. But my ex-husband, the girl's dad, he was older than I was. And he was pretty nontraditional. When I had Brittany, I named Brittany. And so Brittany is Brittany Michelle

Winner. His last name is Winner. Our last name was Winner, which is a pretty unique name in and of itself. But, you know, Brittany, I named her Brittany Michelle Winner because she's always going to be my beamer, my BMW. She is first class. So when I got pregnant with reality he said you know you named the first one I get to name the the second one and I just thought that that was fair and so I said okay and so as you know I the pregnancy you know went on and he decided that he said he wanted a real winner and the reason being is when I was pregnant with Brittany, we went through all the Lamaze classes and everything. He was my coach. He was very proud of that. He was so excited. And he actually had a t shirt made that said that he coached a real winner. And you know, for Brittany,

and so then that kind of gave him the idea that this time he would have a real winner. And so he said he was going to name her Reality Winner. And I said, a deal was a deal. I mean, I couldn't back out. And so, yeah, we named her Reality Lee Winner. We had envisioned that when we brought her home, we would call her Lee, which I think is a very beautiful name. But we had a babysitter and family came

and we just started calling her Reality and it fit. And so it just, and it did fit. And I think indisputably, she's lived up to the name of being a real winner. I mean, throughout her whole life, and you can correct me if I'm wrong here, but she was a top 10 student in her high school class. Even in the Air Force,

she was awarded the Air Force Commendation Medal. Could you tell us about kind of her successes in school and in the Air Force and kind of how she went from that to working in national security? I want to get, if I can, I want to get Brittany's perspective on that piece. Okay. Oh, my perspective on reality in her childhood. Well, she was always my annoying little sister. I mean, I loved her. But since we were so close in age, we kind of butted heads. And like mom alluded to earlier, we're very different people. I'm more chill. I'm pretty, for the most part, pretty happy-go-lucky. You know, just really go with the flow. I'm a rule follower. You know,

I don't really question things very much. You know, I tend to live in my own little bubble. And, you know, I've done pretty well for myself, I'm getting a PhD in pharmacology, and, you know, kind of went into the education route and, you know, into science. And that's kind of been my path. And reality, I did feel like when she went into the Air Force, instead of going into college, that she was doing it, you know, to be different. But it is true that she really loved the Air Force. And she really believed that she could make a difference. And she wanted to learn those languages. That was kind of her top priority. And one of the things that she told me that she wanted to do, when she had learned all those languages, is to go to Afghanistan and provide

humanitarian relief for women and children. And she just envisioned herself helping at an orphanage or just really, you know, being over there, speaking the language, you know, being immersed in the culture. That's the kind of thing that reality really wanted to do. And so while, you know, I'm pretty happy to stay stateside, you know, raise my family, you know, kind of live a quiet little life. Reality from the get-go had plans to do something that was going to, you know, impact a lot of people and, you know, help people. And definitely over the past few years, as people have learned about her and learned about what kind of person she is, she's touched the lives of so

many more people, I think, than she would have imagined. And more than I would have imagined her just being my annoying little sister, running around and basically ruining my life when I was a kid. As three brothers, we know how that goes, first of all. And Billy, I mean, you have two extremely accomplished daughters here who have gone on to do incredible things. And I know I came across Reality Story and I was inspired by it by seeing the online community that has embraced her in such a big way. has really blown up and it's really taking over and it's putting a lot of pressure on public officials to do the right thing and to try to help out reality and commute her sentence or pardon her. I mean, what do you make of the support that you guys have received from the online community?

So, you know, when this first happened, when Reality was arrested, June 3rd, 2017, my husband and I traveled to Georgia to were going to be alone in this and that it was just going to be us against the world. And all of a sudden, you know, people started reaching out from different areas, you know, people we had never met, you know, immediately somebody started a Facebook group, you know, and then people started reaching out. How can we help? What can we do? You know, Wendy came into our lives, because she saw reality story, she actually reached out to reality started writing and communicating with reality from jail. And she asked reality, what can I do to help reality said, please, you know, help my family help my mom through this. And so we've all become a family through this. I owe a lot of the online social media growth to Wendy. Wendy is our social media champion.

And it's amazing to hear her story, which, you know, we can bring her on because Wendy never even had a Twitter account before this. And she has built this, you know, into a truly huge support system for reality, and has brought, you know, reality's name into the public. Because as she said, you know, nobody was talking about reality winner, reality hasn't gotten a lot of mainstream media attention. And I know that the last four years of the Trump administration, there was so much chaos going on. There was so much where stories got buried and reality did get buried. But Wendy has managed to actually bring reality back. I think in some ways, I think we need to rewind for people and just set up for people how we actually got to this place in the first place. And so how do we go from

top 10 student in her high school class to Air Force? What's the path then that gets her into intelligence and then ultimately gets her arrested? Could you kind of take us through that story? Yes, sure. So Reality went into the Air Force. She served six years. She was a Middle Eastern linguist, and she worked with the drone program. She was also selected for other special operations and a deployment to Georgia, Georgia, USA. Reality did receive the commendation medal for her work in identifying

and locating and eliminating enemy targets and terrorists. And so I'm very proud of that. After she was discharged from the Air Force, she was looking for a job. As Brittany said, she was looking for an opportunity to actually travel abroad and to use her compassion and her skills to go and help. Well, she took a job with a contract agency there in Georgia, in Augusta, Georgia, and she was working at the NSA at Fort Gordon. And this was, you know, around the time when, you know, Trump had been elected. We had a situation where, you know, we had people saying that the Russians had intervened and attacked our election. We had an administration that was lying to the American people and trying to

get rid of the whole Russia investigation. You have like the timeframe of like May 2017. May 9th is when, you know, Trump fired Comey. And then he met with the Russians in the White House. And he actually, you know, said that he fired the nut job, he got rid of the whole Russia investigation, they wouldn't have a problem with that anymore. And May 11th, it was when Reality actually took the document that she found at the NSA that proved that the Russians had attacked our voting systems, information that wasn't even out there yet. And Reality took it, she put it in an envelope, and she mailed it to a media outlet. So the document that Reality found in her work with

the NSA and took out and mailed, it was an intelligence summary that our intelligence agencies had put together that showed how the Russians had sent these spear phishing emails to the software, to the voting systems. And what they were trying to do was get into our voting systems and to alter information with regard to registrations and also votes. Do you know how she chose the particular media source to send to? We know from the reporting that it was The Intercept and we know, and I wanna hear your views eventually

that it's been publicly reported in my own view is that it was kind of horribly mishandled in terms of how you handle and protect a source, but how'd she pick the intercept versus New York Times or Washington Post? Do you have any idea? The only information that I have is that she had used some of the intercepts content and media when she was doing some climate change work. Reality also is very, very passionate about climate change issues and about doing things to save her planet.

And so what she had done was she took some information from the Intercept's writing and their podcasts, and she used that because she actually went up and had a meeting with Senator Perdue's staff and was educating them on why it was so important for him to vote a certain way on the Dakota Access Pipeline. in that is that because she was interested in their reporting and knew that they were, you know, a source that basically, I know that they were involved also in the Snowden, you know, information that, and worked with him. I think that she saw them as a source that she could go to and that she could be protected and that they would get this information out to the public. And did she just send them the letter?

Was there any kind of follow up communications that they confirmed her as the source? Do you know if in that letter she said, I'm reality winner, I served X, Y and Z? Do you know that relationship that she had with the intercept? No, absolutely not. None of that happened. All that she did was fold up this document, put it in an envelope with no return address or name, and she mailed it anonymously. And then what happens next with what the intercept does? What my understanding is, is that the intercept received this document, saw what it was, needed to verify it. And they made some mistakes in actually turning over either a copy of it or I don't know if they gave the original to the FBI or showed them what they had to verify the actual document, that this is what they were looking at.

So they were trying to confirm the authenticity of what they had received. Exactly right. Except when normally a media confirms the authenticity, what you would do is you'd put in an email and you would say, I have a document that says X, Y, and Z, will you confirm or deny it? You don't show the intelligence agency the actual document because they're able to look at the document. They can extract either the metadata, the creases, the folds, the markers on it, and basically determine where it was printed, when it was printed.

And that's, in fact, what happened here. Based on what The Intercept showed the NSA, they were able to track down the source of it, which eventually led to them tracking down Reality Winner as the source, which led to a warrant being issued. And on June 3rd of 2017, there was, was there a raid of her, of her home? And then, and then what happened next? Yeah. So June 3rd, 2017, she's going about her day as usual. She goes to the grocery store to stock up on all of her food. She pulls into her driveway. She's immediately surrounded and they approach her and it basically was an entire raid. They tell her that they have a warrant on her house, her vehicle and her person.

They ask for her cell phone. They take her keys. There's 11 FBI agents, all male. Nine of them are armed. And basically two of them take her to the back room of her house, which she has already told them that she doesn't use the back room of her house because she finds it very creepy. And she's uncomfortable in there. But they talk her into going into this back room of her house, which basically when you see this room, she had nothing in it. It's cinder block. It's very small. They had her boxed in. And it looks very much like a jail cell to me.

So they take her back there while the other ones are, you know, going through her house and going through all of her possessions. And they basically interrogate her in this back room. They never mirandized her. They never read her rights, never told her that she was free to call an attorney, never told her that she was free to, you know, not talk to them. You know, and so basically she confesses. She tells them, yes, I'm the one who did this. And she tells them, you know, that she just felt like this information had to be out there. And so from there, she's arrested, she's taken into jail,

she was taken to a small rural county jail in Georgia, which you can only imagine what that's like. And, you know, then she was denied bail. They said that she was a flight risk. They said that she was a risk to the country. You know, my daughter had $30,000 in her bank account. My daughter, they took her passport. My daughter had only taken one trip out of the United States, you know, like a week and a half before this, and she returned. But yet they said all these things about her so that she was denied bail. So she had

no chance of defending herself and, you know, was held in horrendous conditions this entire time and was basically forced to accept the plea deal that they, you know, offered her. Before going there, Brittany, what do you remember about that day, June 3rd, 2017 and thereafter? Did this shock you? What went through your mind? And I kept getting these phone calls on my cell phone. And I got like, you know, 15 phone calls from a number. And of course, at the time, you know, everything's innocent. I'm like, oh, man, you know, this spam caller is just really calling me so many times, you know, leave me alone. You know, I'm at the movies. And then it's later that night that I think I got a text from mom saying, we're on our

way to Georgia. Reality's in trouble. And I'm just like, oh, no. So my heart just sank, you know, when I realized that she was in jail, and she was trying to call me, you know, trying to get, you know, her big sister to help her out. And here I was just ignoring these calls, you know, because I'm like, ah, you know, this, this stupid spam, you know, caller. So now, if anybody calls me more than two or three times, I'm going to pick up the phone because I've learned my lesson. But it was just, it was shock. And it was, I had no idea what she could possibly, you know, what kind of trouble she could possibly be in where she would, you know, be in jail. At

first I thought maybe there was some sort of misunderstanding, maybe, you know, I don't know that she, you know, had gotten into something with someone. I mean, who knows? I just, I was like, just completely confused. And we, for a while, didn't know why she was in there until she, she called me at some point. I think it was pretty soon after she was arrested. She called me from jail. And that was the phone call where I tried to make her feel a little bit better. We joked back and forth like we do. We have really strange sense of humor and not everybody will kind of understand it. And the transcript of that phone call was actually used against reality in court to show that she was, you know, not taking things seriously and that, you know, she, you know, deserved to be in there or X, Y, Z or things that she,

you know, might've said on the phone call where everything was recorded. And, you know, she, you know, deserved to be in there or X, Y, Z, or things that she, you know, might have said on the phone call where everything was recorded. And, you know, that was, I think, probably one of the most traumatizing things about the experience was being up on the stand as a witness for my sister, why she should, you know, get out on bail. And then the phone records that the FBI had gotten from my sister, they went through our Facebook messenger chats and they pulled out very specific instances where we were talking back and forth about her having to take a lie detector test. And she was joking that she was going to fail. And I was joking back with her. And it's like, they're taking the most literal approach to every message.

And, you know, I say this to a lot of people, I'm like, what would happen if the FBI went through your phone? What kind of person would they paint of you? What would, what kind of monster would they, you know, make you out to be your private messages with your closest family member? And we were, we're weird. I mean, we are so weird. We joke about the weirdest things and to hear that being brought up, you know, in a court of law, this very aggressive prosecutor asking me these questions. And here I am trying to, you know, defend my relationship with my sister. It was, it was completely inappropriate, completely irrelevant. And I'm still really angry to this day that they were able to paint her as some sort of terrorist and by that not allow her out of, out of jail because she was dangerous and she's not dangerous.

She's my little sister, you know? So that was just, that was awful. That whole part of it. And then of course, after her final bail hearing, you know, and she was denied, it just, it just felt like, like the world had ended. Like, when was she ever going to get out of there? What were we going to have to do to prepare for trial? It was basically the nightmare started on June 3rd, 2017, and it still hasn't ended. And Brittany, the prosecutors did in fact try, as you mentioned, tried to paint reality as like a terrorist, as a terrorist sympathizer. Here you have someone who dutifully served this country in the Air Force, who received commendations for her incredible work

in defeating enemy combatants overseas. But what the prosecutors were leaking publicly was information that they claimed said that she had, I forget what the language was, but like bizarre affinities for Osama bin Laden and things like that, that they would say publicly. Where did they get that from? And what did you think as you were going through the process and they were making those types of statements, the prosecutors? So I know that they had gone through her personal journal, which who hasn't written something completely strange in her personal journal. I can guarantee you that she does not support Osama bin Laden. She does not support any terroristic violence against the United States or against anyone. That's completely antithetical to who reality is and what she believes in. Reality in being

interested in Middle Eastern languages was also interested in the culture so that if she got the opportunity to go volunteer and do humanitarian work over there, she could understand the people, where they're coming from and who they are. She was interested in studying world religion. So she had books on, you know, Islam. She had, you know, a couple of copies of the Quran. She gave one of them to me. She loved the poetry in it and she thought it was beautiful. And the way that the prosecution, the way that the government was able to cherry pick all of these things and put them into some sort of narrative. I mean, it's, it's quite creative and it's quite, you know, amazing in a terrible way that they were able

to do that from this, you know, this, this little girl from Texas, you know, rural Texas. I mean, we, we grew up in the middle of nowhere and she served her country and she, you know, was a model citizen. And she really only cared about protecting her country and doing what she thought was right. And for them to come back and do basically any means necessary, say anything about her to keep her in jail so that they could break her spirit so she would accept a plea deal, get the highest, you know, the most, you know, months in prison ever for a whistleblower. And then the prosecution could, you know, clap each other on the back and, you know, go home at the end of the day, job well done. That was just, it's horrifying. And it's something that I think people need to know more about that the government, if they want you, if they want to, you know, punish you like this, they'll do anything. They'll say anything about you. And you really don't think

that about your own government or that about these people that you've never met. Like, why do you have such a vendetta against my sister? Why do you want to see her in prison, in jail? Why are you doing this to us? Kind of those are the questions. And now I think we have a little bit more clarity about, you know, it's been three and a half years we have a little bit more clarity about, you know, it's been three and a half years, we know the situation we know, you know, at least we think we know how bad things were in terms of Russian interference in elections and the kind of grand scheme of everything. The gestalt of things just really puts it in perspective, like why they went after her so hard and why they had to silence my sister.

Billy, how much time was your daughter facing and why ultimately did she take the plea deal that she took? They were threatening her with 10 years. They were actually threatening reality with 10 years in prison for releasing a single document. And if you look at any other cases, any other person in the United States who's been charged under this law, they released volumes and no one has ever been, you know, treated the way that she was. She is the only person who was denied bail. And they did that for a reason. They did that so that she could be gagged. You know, reality is still under a gag order. The judge ordered a gag order so nobody could speak out about this case. So the only narrative who can really come out there now with my support system and Brittany to tell people the other side of it because they locked her up, they silenced her, they silenced her defense team, and they continue to do that. When is she set to be released?

Her release date on the BOP website right now is November 23rd of 2021. And that's with the good time. She has been given good time for, you know, they give them good time in prison. So right now her release date is November 23rd. And which prison facility is she in right now? Right now she's at what it's called FMC Carswell. It's a federal medical center, but that's really confusing to people because the only reason they call it a medical center is because the prison has a hospital on its campus. And so she's not in the hospital, she's in the prison. Wendy, when did you first hear Reality Winner's name and what made you go from not having a Twitter account to leading this free reality movement? I think we were all on high alert with what was going on with the 2016 election.

And I heard her name and I heard a bit about her story and it felt very much you know this was at a point in time I think when the media was still just reciting narratives rather than looking into things and investigating you know and fact-checking none of that had started yet and all my alarm bells went off you know know, this young woman reminds me of, you know, again, like my, my kids, you know, I'm thinking this, this nothing feels right about this. And the charge and the way she was being treated. And as I learned more, you know, because I did start communicating with her again which was like so out of the box for me it just I I it was a soulful connection somehow to reach out to reality

and um I just felt she was being railroaded completely and I, to be denied a bail, I mean, if you compare the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol and what they have done, you know, and some of them have been allowed to go on vacation, you know, not only have a bail, but go on vacation, get special permission from the judge. There was nothing about due process in reality's case. She wasn't well connected. She wasn't rich. Billy and Brittany described how she was being treated and charged because they could get away with it. They wanted her silent. They wanted her gagged because they had to keep the narrative going that this was all fake news. And if Reality Winner got to speak and the American people got to meet her, number one, they'd fall in love with her right away. And, you know, the news would be out. I mean, it's what they did to reality from the moment they interrogated her and arrested her. I mean, imagine she never saw the light of day again. She got thrown in this rural county jail in Lincolnton, Georgia. I mean, this place, I'm telling you, if, if this was a kennel, and you wouldn't leave your

animal there, you'd be like, hell no. Hell no. You know, I'm, I mean, it was horrible. You know, reality is a vegan. She literally had to try to exist on stale peanut butter and oatmeal. I mean, if she got that, you know, it's just everything about this case. I mean, she was beaten in that jail because people, these women coming in and out that were coming down off drugs. I mean, it was a it was a county jail. It wasn't a place you're supposed to be long-term and reality was there for one year and 83 days and guards watched this type of treatment happen to reality. You know, she, she was still trying to help all the people that came in the jail. I mean,

she, she'd reached out to us, you know, this person needs to go to the hospital and this person, you know, need, needs help. And here's reality us, you know, this person needs to go to the hospital, and this person, you know, needs help, and here's reality, just, you know, literally, in this room, 23 and a half hours a day, if she did get out for a half an hour to get outside and get potentially to exercise she it was literally a cage I mean that's that's what their area their exercise area was was a cage and then they would mock her because she was trying to run I remember that um I guess you would refer to him as the sheriff of the warden there, he would stand in front of her and not let her pass. I mean, these are the ways reality was attacked from within that jail. She wasn't allowed to have the type of private meetings with her attorneys that she needed to have to try and develop a case for herself. They weren't allowed able to mount a defense. Being charged under the Espionage Act,

basically the courts just ran rough shot right over her. Wendy, how did you reach out to her? I mean, had you ever, you just called her in prison or you showed up one day? I mean, how does that even happen? It's so funny because her joke is, if you need to reach me, call 911. But no, so I was a little nervous about reaching out to someone in this way. So I did a little research. I mean, there was nothing about her really anywhere. So it was kind of hard

to figure out what to do. But I found a way that you could email inmates. So I thought, well, I can email her, but she can't email me back, you know, and that was my initial contact. I emailed her having no idea whether she'd ever seen, you know, my emails, because she had no way to get back to me. And then I, I wrote to her and I wrote to her and I just, I told her how sorry I was for what she was going through and what I had been able to find out. And I also just tried to communicate with her, you know, like I would, you know, a young woman in their 20s, and just talk to her about things that were going on in the world. And, you know, just a letter, basically. And she wrote me back. And that's how it all started. And then when she wrote me back,

and we got to know each other a little bit. And, you know, she said, call me re. I mean, she doesn't go by reality, she goes by re re and um we you know we got to know each other and she just could not believe that anyone cared because the court the way that they spoke about her as Brittany alluded to the way that they painted her and what the media, the little bit of coverage she had repeated, reality thought that every American in this country hated her. She was so beaten down and terrified that she was hated, that everyone thought that she was a traitor. And that was my biggest, the hardest thing for me was to tell her, no, no, that's not what we think. Because, you know, she doesn't know what's going on on the outside. You know, she doesn't know that people are

understanding and fighting. And there's a, you know, there's a giant women's march and, you know, all types of things like that, all types of activism. She just knows what they said about her. So that was, that was it. Well, that's how we started. And then as Billy said, you know, she's like, please, you know, the only thing I ask of you is make sure my mom's okay. Knowing we were, you know, around the same age and, and, you know, talk to her, call her, try and help her. Wendy, Billy, Brittany, how often do you talk to reality at this point? How long do you get to kind of give her updates and hear from her and make sure that she's doing okay? We talk and email regularly.

You know, when she's been on these lockdowns, it's very difficult for her to, they have shortened phone calls. You know, with COVID, Reality did contract COVID in prison. By the way, she was congratulated for her positive results from the Guard when she was handed her paperwork. That's how much they care about Reality and that lets you know how much they would try and help her if she were ill. But it depends on the lockdowns. But normally, you know, we try and email every day, every other day at the most, and she calls when she can. For communication, we used to video chat quite a bit. But now, you know, with Brittany's new three month old baby, and I, you know, I, I unfortunately for me I have to but I completely understand all my video time

goes to seeing um reality's new niece that she hasn't been able to meet yeah and I usually talk to her maybe twice a week and we always have she she'll set us up a weekly weekend video visit between my husband and I. So we had our visit this morning at 830. My husband and I, we get about 20 minutes with her. And it's through video. And that's something that I really want the world to know also that, you know, reality, she was doing okay in prison. She was doing her programs. She had a really good job at the recreation center. She was teaching fitness and nutrition. She was doing artwork. She was taking college classes. You know, she was doing okay. She was surviving in there. And then when COVID happened, the prisons all went on a modified

operations. And what happened is they shut them down. They are locked in. There are no programs. There's nothing for them. They are locked in their units. And I want people also to know that, how hard this is. This is not just doing prison time. This is doing lockdown time. And there's no end to it. There's been no face to face visits since March 13 of 2020. And we don't know when there's ever going to be face to face visits again because of COVID. You know, everything has changed for her drastically. And, you know, she did apply for compassionate release. The BOP basically lied and said that she didn't. They lied and then they found her request. Then they denied her request. Her attorneys then filed with the district court for compassionate release. That judge basically said he didn't have the authority. And he said if he did have the authority, he wouldn't let her out. And then it went to the appellate court. The appeals court said they probably would have ruled a different way, but they still stuck with what the judge said. And so she's been

denied compassionate release. You know, she's no threat to society. She has no criminal history. She's only ever served her country and every community that she's ever lived in through volunteer work and other work that she's done. Why can't Reality Winner come home on home confinement like some of these other people have been allowed to do? She's a nonviolent offender. I just, I don't understand why her treatment throughout this entire process has had to be so cruel, you know, to the point where, you know, they treat her so much worse than anyone else. They do. They do. And may I add that, remember, these same courts are the courts that denied reality bail. Reality has to go back to the same courts in Georgia to ask for compassionate release. So the same district judge, Randall Hall, that denied her bail,

denied her compassionate release without even holding a hearing. And then she has to go to the same circuit court, the appeals court in the 11th district, which Judge Sotomayor has already called out as being out of step and out of touch. That same court that denied her bail on appeal, denied her compassionate release, and actually held a hearing and then said, well, if it was up to them, they would have given it because she met all the criteria, but wasn't going to go over the head of the district judge

who didn't even hold a hearing because he didn't care. Because reality winner isn't well connected and reality winner is not rich and there's nobody powerful that's pushing this. It's, it's, it's just us and they don't care. It's disgusting. It really is. It troubles me because I feel like they saw somebody who wasn't in a position of power like that. And it seems like every single step of the way on a reality journey, she's been failed by the system, whether it was the media when she leaked the document, thinking that she would be a

confidential source to the government, the judges, the Department of Justice. And who was the, was it Jeff Sessions was AG in 2017 when this happened? Do you think he was trying to make an example of her at that point? He said it. He said he was, I mean, I thought that was against the law to use a case to make an example, but he said it. And Come they they and comey too they were going to you know nail her to the wall they were going to make an example of her and you know the the craziest thing about all of this too the system failing her the cruelty along the way but i don't know if you're familiar with the eac which which is the Election Assistance Commission. They govern elections.

Immediately after Reality Alert, they put out guidance to the state. There's a tweet. They tweeted, alert, hashtag Reality Winner, the first time that hashtag was ever used. And they didn't know what was happening. So they used her alert. If that doesn't prove that she was, you know, a conscience-driven whistleblower, I don't know what would. I mean, she provided a public service at her own demise.

She risked everything because she knew this information was out there, but no one was telling us. No one was telling us what was going on. And Reality Winner basically stepped up and did what needed to be done. And this is how she has been treated because she is not powerful. And here's the thing, Wendy, we've heard of people who have leaked documents, but in leaking so many documents in many ways, they do compromise in some ways, American security and American intelligence. Let's be clear, this is not that case. This is a document that simply ties a foreign government in attacking our country. And it was that single kind of document, that one overall summary that was mailed, and not this abundance of other

documents that could somehow compromise American intelligence. Quite the contrary, the information that was provided helped America, helped prepare states to be safe and secure. And but for a reality winner leaking that, had she not, we may not have actually been prepared this time around. And as the cybersecurity expert who was fired said, this was in 2020, one of the safest and most secure elections. And so that's ultimately what she did. That to me at its core is what makes this different than, you know, than a Snowden or some other cases. I think, in fact, when she was at least this was reported when she was interrogated. I think one of the things that reality said is what's going on. This is not a Snowden situation. I'm no Snowden. And I mean, the Senate Intelligence Committee and Mueller used

her information and both of their reports. I mean, you know, it's this whole case. It just this political persecution. It just stinks. And it's time to bring reality winter home. She has suffered so much. She has been sexually assaulted in prison. She filed a PREA report, which is a confidential report back, I believe, last March. Nothing was ever done about it. Nothing. Until Billy spoke out and the media picked it up and then now you know it's being discussed i mean reality's faced you know like you said all along the way i mean what horrible things could be done to reality winner they've been done in jail and now they've been they're happening in prison you know if she's doing well they make

sure and move her to another unit where she won't do so well you know this is how she's been treated all along the way and i don't understand why she why no one in government is helping her at this point. We have a new administration now. I mean, reality winner needs to come home. I want to talk about that, this tale of two administrations. I understand there were some efforts made at the end of the Trump administration. I think he had tweeted something about her, about reality, comparing her to Clinton and saying what Clinton did was much worse. So potentially that provided an opening. Maybe there was an opportunity for clemency or a pardon. How did that go? Did anything come of that at all, Billie?

No, nothing at all. He did tweet about reality and he actually called her small potatoes, you know, because he was comparing her to Clinton. And he was saying to Jeff Sessions that her sentence was so unfair, which it was. I mean, the 63 month sentence plus the three years supervised release when she's out, that is the longest sentence ever for anyone who has been charged under this act. And they actually gave out awards to all of the prosecution team that was involved in Reality Winner's case. Had a banquet and everything. They had a big dinner. Yeah, they were proud of this. And so, you know, Trump did tweet that this was unfair.

And he did tweet that she was small potatoes. And so we reality filed a petition for clemency last year in February, you know, asking for her sentence to be commuted. You know, she's not even asking for a full pardon at this point. She's asking commute my sentence. She has done enough time. You know, she's already been in prison now incarcerated for 3.8 years. And, you know, she's a model citizen. She's no threat to society. The judge at her sentencing hearing even stated that it was highly unlikely that reality would ever see the inside of a

courtroom as a defendant again. What does that tell you? Why is she still in prison? And so, yes, we tried. We tried everything that we could to get the attention of Trump to commute her sentence, you know, and every round of pardons and commutations that were released under him, it was a slap in the face. And I know definitely, you know, that it was intentional that my daughter was not given, you know, a pardon, or her sentence was not commuted under him. I know that he, you know, saw this as an attack on him, because she released the truth that he was trying to hide from the American people. And I know that he held a grudge against her for that because once she released this document, he could no longer say that it didn't happen. And this document,

as Wendy said, was used by the Senate Intelligence Committee when they did their investigation. This document was used by Mueller. This document then told the 21 states, at first it was just 21, that they were under attack. And, you know, all 21 states said, why weren't we told? Why was this kept hidden from us? You know, so yes, you know, so realities, her petition for clemency is still there. And so now we turn our attention to this new administration. And we just hope that we can make enough noise that we can get enough attention, have her name heard, you know, so that we get the attention of President Biden Biden and that he acts on this petition and that he releases her. She has served enough time. It's time for her to come home. She has already

suffered so many atrocities, so many, you know, nightmares. You know, this last winter storm, She had to endure living in a cold prison without water. She has 300 women in her unit with 16 toilets and no water. Imagine what that was like. You know, my daughter said that they actually had to clean out the toilets themselves with their hands when they brought up water so that they could make the toilets usable. You know, this is this is just this is cruel and unusual punishment at this time for somebody who is no threat whatsoever to anyone. If you look at who Trump did, in fact, pardon, it was the people who aided and abetted Russia and their efforts to attack the country.

Those were the people who get off free. Meanwhile, the people who were here, like your daughter, who protected the country, are having to scrub toilet bowls in some indescript prison during a blizzard in Texas while the Republican senator there is off to Cancun while we're having this interview today. What comes next now? Are there any, I understand there's still the petition for clemency pending, but are there any other hearings with new DOJ in? Is there any potential efforts

that could happen from now until November 23rd for a compassionate release? From what I understand is that the compassionate release, once it's denied by the Court of Appeals, it's pretty much dead, that she has no chance of a compassionate release. What she, her only chance right now is to have her sentence commuted, to be granted clemency, or if the president wanted to, to pardon her and to release her. And so, you know, because she accepted the plea deal and she pled guilty, she doesn't have an appeal process within the Department of Justice. So pretty much right now it lays with the president of the United States. him, you know, tweet, do whatever you can to get the attention and so that he can, you know, get to know who Reality Winner is, what she's about, what's happened to her and to right this wrong. Billy, if you were sitting across from President Biden right now, or if somebody from the Biden administration was watching this

interview, listening to this interview, what would you want them to hear? What would you tell them? I would tell them that she has already been punished for her crime. She has expressed deep remorse for betraying the trust of her country. My daughter has only ever served her country and every community. She is such a good, caring, compassionate person. All she wants to do is be with her family and to continue to serve her community. So I would just beg them to please look at her record, look at her actions. All of that speaks so much louder than this narrative that the prosecution made up about her. And, you know, to please just give her a chance to come home to start healing. A lot of damage has been done to my daughter and she needs

to start the healing process. Brittany, what would you say? I would say bring reality home because just like my mom said, she's suffered enough. My sister doesn't belong there. She never belonged there, but we can't undo the past. And 3.8 years is enough for anyone. I mean, again, the people who believe that reality deserved to be punished, well, she has. She doesn't deserve to be punished anymore. She deserves to come home to her family again to begin the healing process, like my mom said, and to meet her new niece who she hasn't had the opportunity to meet yet. You know, how much more of my daughter's life is is my little sister going to miss? And hopefully the answer to that is no more, because what we're asking of President Biden and of people in his administration is to free my sister and bring Reality Winner home. Wendy, how can those listening or watching this support the Free Reality Winner movement?

Any way that you can, any way that you will. Right now, we have an action going where we're asking people on March 3rd to please send a postcard or letter to President Biden asking for her release. We are always on Twitter or on Facebook. We're looking for people on different social media platforms to express themselves that Reality Winner has taken responsibility for her actions. She has suffered beyond measure, and it's time to bring her home. So in any way that they possibly can reach out to this administration, be creative. We just need numbers. I mean,

Billy and I started out, we were lucky to get a retweet. I mean, neither one of us had Twitter accounts, you know, and, and, and it's grown. We've grown. We have people, we're trying to educate people about reality and what you're doing here today. We just are so grateful. And today people are hearing us ask to please reach out to this administration. And that reality winner is she's just a beautiful person no one has gotten to know her no one has gotten to know who she is because she's been silenced and imprisoned from the moment she was interrogated she's never been allowed to speak she's never been allowed to show herself. Wendy, where can people find you or Billy or the movement on social media, on Twitter, any websites you'd like to plug? Well, we have our website, standwithreality.org. And you can go there and find lots of information about reality winner um and on twitter um would you

like me to give out our handles or um yeah that'd be great okay um i'm at wendy mere m e e r 11 um on twitter and um And Brittany's Winter Brittany, right? At Winter Brittany. That's right. And Billy at BJ Winter Davis. Yes. So at WendyMirror11, at Winter Brittany, at BJ Winter Davis. And our website is standwithreality.org.

We have a petition going as well. We're hoping to have more signatures. Right now we're closing in on 15,000 signatures, but it's on Twitter, it's on the website, StandWithReality.org. We would like to have many, many, many more signatures on that petition that we can send to the White House to show them that the American people are calling for reality's relief. Billy Winner Davis, mom to reality winner, I'll give you the last word. Oh, well, again, I thank you for having us on. I appreciate you giving us this platform because I know that a lot of people are going to listen to this and know a little bit more about Reality Winner. And I just I think everybody who has been with us on this journey and who has been so supportive. It's I've never felt alone in this. It still has been one of the most,

it's been the most difficult thing I've ever gone through in my entire life. Something that I never expected ever to experience. And I just, I cannot wait for the time when reality can actually be home, be with us. And I look for that time. Billy Winter Davis, Brittany Winter, Wendy Collins, thank you for joining this special edition of the Midas Touch Podcast. Thank you. Thank you.