A lawyer for Reality Winner, the 25-year-old government contractor who was arrested for leaking classified information to the press, said Wednesday that people should ignore her anti-Trump tweets and instead take it from her parents when it comes to “who she is as a person.”
“For a better idea of who she is, I think her parents have done a phenomenal job in explaining to the world who she is as a person, not just this figure that’s been created in the span of a week,” lawyer Titus Nichols said on CNN.
Reality Winner’s lawyer: Trust her parents’ interviews, not her anti-Trump tweets, to define her https://t.co/YU2cOrVIIC— New Day (@NewDay) June 7, 2017
Nichols indicated that any court hearing her case might not allow Winner’s tweets to be part of the case against her, although that has yet to be decided.
Among other things, Winner has called Trump a “piece of shit,” and in February, she tweeted that “the most dangerous entry to this country was the orange fascist we let into the white house.”
In a Daily Mail interview, her parents admitted that she is “not a fan” of President Trump, but said their daughter, an Air Force veteran, is being used for “political purposes.”
That story indicated that Winner’s parents also are Trump opponents.
“Her father’s comments and Winner’s social media accounts, which is filled with loathing for Donald Trump, suggests she may try to claim her prosecution is politically-motivated and that she was acting as a whistleblower,” the Daily Mail reported.
Winner’s lawyer had no comment on CNN when asked if reports are true that she admitted leaking classified NSA documents to the news outlet The Intercept. The information she leaked detailed Russian attempts to hack into the U.S. voting system last year.
