Reality Winner leaked a single, five-page Top Secret NSA intelligence report about Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, specifically a cyber operation targeting U.S. voting infrastructure.

What exactly did she leak?

  • It was an NSA report dated May 2017, classified Top Secret.
  • The document described how Russian military intelligence (the GRU) hacked at least one U.S. voting software supplier.
  • It also detailed spear‑phishing attempts against more than 100 local election offices shortly before the 2016 election.
  • The report was mailed anonymously to the news outlet The Intercept, which then published a story based on it.

In short, when people ask “reality winner what did she leak,” the answer is: a highly classified NSA assessment that laid out specific technical details of Russian attempts to access parts of U.S. election systems in 2016.

Why it mattered

  • Politically, the leak added concrete detail to public debates over how far Russia actually went in probing U.S. voting systems.
  • Legally, she was charged under the Espionage Act for giving “national defense information” to the press, not to a foreign power.
  • Her sentence—about five years in federal prison—was one of the longest ever for an unauthorized media leak of this kind.

Her motive (as she describes it)

Reality Winner has said she acted because she believed the American public was being misled about the scope of Russian interference and felt a duty to inform them, even knowing the document was classified.

She has repeatedly insisted she is “not a traitor,” framing her act as a misguided but principled attempt to serve the public, not to harm the U.S.

TL;DR: Reality Winner leaked a Top Secret NSA report detailing Russian GRU hacking of a U.S. voting software company and spear‑phishing attacks on over 100 local election offices tied to the 2016 election; she sent it to The Intercept and was later sentenced to more than five years in prison for the leak.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.