After years locked away for leaking classified information on Russian interference, the former NSA contractor has a lot to say about how she got there

One of the first things Reality Winner did when she was released from federal prison in June was start building a paddock for a horse named Trouble, and a small shed for her gym equipment beside it.

Winner, a former NSA contractor, was training for a powerlifting competition when she was arrested in June 2017, accused of leaking classified information to The Intercept. When the FBI showed up at her house that day, her main preoccupation was getting her perishable groceries into the fridge and figuring out who would feed her cat and foster dog if she came in for questioning. She hadn’t processed the fact that, not only would she miss the competition, she wouldn’t go home for years.

Inside the shed, where she spends most of her time these days, she’s got three hundred pounds of bumper plates, dumbbells, barbells, a kettlebell, pull-up bars, gymnastics rings, a nine-foot steel rig for doing squats and bench presses, a jump box, a rowing machine and stationary bike, all gifted by friends and supporters ahead of her release. Between reps, she’ll run out and give Trouble a scratch on his nose.

“I built my workout shed right by the side of his pasture, so he’s always creeping by,” Winner says. “It’s one of those moments where it’s, like, I’m doing deadlifts and petting my horse between sets? My life is perfect right now.”

‘Perfect’ is a relative term coming from someone who has spent the last four years in federal prison. For the next three years, Winner, who had her court-mandated ankle monitor removed on Tuesday, will still be on probation, which means mandatory drug tests every two weeks, a 10 p.m. curfew, and securing permission from her probation officer for any overnight trip she’d like to take. (Getting that permission is not a given, either — Winner’s P.O. already turned down her request to run a half marathon in San Antonio next month because it would mean traveling outside the federal district where her case is located.)

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/reality-winner-interview-prison-nsa-1261844/

She loved that coat. It was the only one she had, made of thick smooth Casentino cloth, which some said was the best in Italy. Second, it was bright vermilion, as red as could be, bound to get her noticed and appreciated as she walked down the street. Red was her colour in all kinds of ways. The short form of Rossana was “Rossa”, so that was her name among her friends. And her politics were red too, fiercely anti-fascist and of the left. Her approach wasn’t intellectual, since she preferred actual parties to the intense philosophical debates some of her friends had. But then she was only a schoolgirl. She knew quite enough to have joined a group of young Communist Partisans in Rome to undermine, and fight if they could, the German occupation and the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini. All of them agreed it was the right thing and the only thing to do. Justice, solidarity, freedom! And joy.

She loved that coat. It was the only one she had, made of thick smooth Casentino cloth, which some said was the best in Italy. Second, it was bright vermilion, as red as could be, bound to get her noticed and appreciated as she walked down the street. Red was her colour in all kinds of ways. The short form of Rossana was “Rossa”, so that was her name among her friends. And her politics were red too, fiercely anti-fascist and of the left. Her approach wasn’t intellectual, since she preferred actual parties to the intense philosophical debates some of her friends had. But then she was only a schoolgirl. She knew quite enough to have joined a group of young Communist Partisans in Rome to undermine, and fight if they could, the German occupation and the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini. All of them agreed it was the right thing and the only thing to do. Justice, solidarity, freedom! And joy.

That was where the red coat came in, on those chilly evenings in November and December 1942 when she cycled after school from Piazzale Clodio to Nomentura and then to Monte Sacro. She was part of a relay taking copies of L’Unità, the main Communist newspaper, now banned and underground, to a butcher who sent them on. No one would suspect her, she thought, a random girl on a bike in a nice eye-catching coat. But then, unhappily, someone did. The butcher was arrested and shot, and “the girl in the red coat” was now on the Gestapo’s watch list. At that point she had to go into hiding and put her coat away.

On other relay missions she took weapons, though not without a dose of terrors. One was by bus over rough roads, where with every jolt she had to cling tighter to an enormous suitcase and try to keep it flat. The situation wasn’t helped by her friend Maurizio, who was behaving as eager young men do once they are engaged. After one especially bad bump he shouted, “Rossa, mind those eggs!” Then they both burst out laughing. They were not engaged at all, just “doing the couple” to deflect suspicion, and the “eggs” she was carrying, more or less carefully, were nitroglycerine explosives. “Too many boyfriends” was something the Gestapo’s spies also noted down.

All her resistance work had a certain pattern to it. She tricked the enemy by appearing as a non-threatening, even silly young woman, because that was the role the fascist regime had long assigned to them. (How little imagination fascists had!) Women were fashion-plates, girlfriends, mothers, wives: ancillary to men. Most did not dream of taking part in politics or war, and she helped to add fire (sometimes too literally) to their rather helpless demonstrations when their men were taken away. Doing so made her a ragazza terribile, a terrible girl. But what did they expect from a general’s daughter? She was as fervent as he was that Italy should be free. And when in June 1944, nine months after the Armistice between Italy and the Allies, she volunteered to work for Britain’s Special Operations Executive (soe), he let her go almost as soon as she asked him, telling her only: “Do your duty...as best you can.”

https://www.economist.com/obituary/2021/11/27/rossana-banti-fought-to-free-italy-with-laughter-as-well-as-weapons

I apologize to anyone in the Muslim community I offended with my comment about Rep. Omar. I have reached out to her office to speak with her directly. There are plenty of policy differences to focus on without this unnecessary distraction.

Five Democratic senators have told the White House they won't support Saule Omarova to head the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, effectively killing her nomination for the powerful bank-regulator position.

Why it matters: The defiant opposition from a broad coalition of senators reflects the real policy concerns they had with Omarova, a Cornell University law professor who's attracted controversy for her academic writings about hemming in big banks.

Their opposition also hints at a willingness of some Democratic senators to buck the White House on an important nomination, even if it hands Republicans a political — and symbolic — victory.

Republicans have attacked the Kazakh-born scholar in remarkably personal terms, and turned her nomination into a proxy battle over how banks should be regulated.

Driving the news: In phone call on Wednesday, Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), all members of the Senate Banking Committee, told Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) — the panel's chairman — of their opposition.

They're joined in opposing her by Sens. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) and Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.).

https://www.axios.com/democrats-omarova-occ-5755a0e4-c6a5-4ca7-b6c7-87d18d5491f9.html