The US Department of Justice has charged a federal contractor with sending classified material to a news organisation that sources identified to Reuters as The Intercept, marking one of the first concrete efforts by the Trump administration to crack down on leaks to the media.
Reality Leigh Winner, 25, was charged on Monday with removing classified material from a government facility located in Georgia. She was arrested on June 3, the Justice Department said.
The charges were announced less than an hour after The Intercept published a top-secret document from the US National Security Agency that described Russian efforts to launch cyber attacks on at least one US voting software supplier and send "spear-phising" emails, or targeted emails that try to trick a recipient into clicking on a malicious link to steal data, to more than 100 local election officials days before the presidential election last November.
The Justice Department declined to comment on the case beyond its filing. Federal Bureau of Investigation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
While the charges do not name the publication, a US official with knowledge of the case said Winner was charged with leaking the NSA report to The Intercept. A second official confirmed The Intercept document was authentic and did not dispute that the charges against Winner were directly tied to it.
The Intercept's reporting reveals new details behind the conclusion of US intelligence agencies that Russian intelligence services were seeking to infiltrate state voter registration systems as part of a broader effort to interfere in the election, discredit Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and help then Republican candidate Donald Trump win the election.
The new material does not, however, suggest that actual votes were manipulated.
The Intercept co-founding editor Glenn Greenwald did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Winter's mother also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
While partially redacted, the NSA document is marked to show it would be up for declassification on May 5, 2042. The indictment against Winner alleges she "printed and improperly removed" classified intelligence reporting that was dated "on or about May 5, 2017."
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