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[0:00] Dori Berenstein: On June 3rd, 2017, FBI interrogators surprised Air Force linguist Reality Lee Winner at her home in Augusta, Georgia, accusing her of leaking classified information proving Russian interference in the 2016 election.

[0:25] Sally Horchow: Tonight, this unassuming-looking 25-year-old is behind bars in Georgia, the main suspect in a federal leak investigation that the Department of Justice calls a threat to national security. Reality Lee Winner, an Air Force veteran who worked as a government contractor, is accused of removing classified material from a government facility and mailing it to a news outlet.

[0:45] Dori Berenstein: The text of that FBI interrogation is now the Broadway play, Is This a Room?, conceived by director Tina Satter. In this series, we take you beyond the headlines, inside the story of Reality Winner, a decorated Air Force veteran, to uncover how a 25-year-old with a Pikachu bedspread became the world's number one terrorist. I'm Dori Berenstein.

[1:07] Sally Horchow: And I'm Sally Horchow. And we are the producers of Is This a Room? on Broadway. This is Reality.

[1:20] Dori Berenstein: On June 3, 2017, 11 FBI agents appeared at the home of Reality Winner, a 25-year-old Air Force linguist, to interrogate her about leaking a classified document proving Russian interference in the 2016 election. Reality was found guilty and was sentenced to five years and three months in prison, the longest sentence ever for leaking government information to the media.

[1:46] Sally Horchow: Is This a Room?, the critically acclaimed play, which Jesse Green from The New York Times calls one of the thrillingest thrillers ever to hit Broadway, reenacts the verbatim transcript of Reality Winner's actual FBI interrogation. When we started the journey of bringing Is This a Room? to Broadway, we realized there was so much the public didn't know about Reality's story.

[2:09] Dori Berenstein: When Reality was arrested for leaking this document, the press coverage was scarce. In fact, the late-night talk shows only covered it to make fun of her name. The leaker's name, and this is true, Reality Winner. So it's official. The Trump administration is at war with reality.

[2:30] Sally Horchow: Reality Lee Winner was a highly decorated Air Force veteran who taught yoga, loved CrossFit, and rescued animals. She had no previous record and was not politically active before leaking the document. So how did a 25-year-old with a Pikachu bedspread become the world's number one terrorist?

[2:51] Dori Berenstein: In December of 2017, theater director Tina Satter was reading New York Magazine when she came across an article about Reality Winner. She was immediately intrigued.

[3:02] Tina Satter: I very, very vaguely remember hearing of Reality Winner and someone had asked me what that story was. I don't think I could have even told you. Then in December 2017, I was literally just free-reading on the computer and there was the article there, America's Biggest Terrorist Has a Pikachu Bedspread. I just was like, wait, this blonde girl in these eyes, who is this person? I just was really taken. There was this picture of her with a hoodie pulled up over her head. And this person is really fascinating, like all the dichotomies and biographical details of her were really striking me.

[3:40] Tina Satter: I clicked that link, which then took you to Politico, where there was a scanned PDF of the transcript. Tina realized that the actual verbatim transcript of the FBI interrogation, which included every cough, every stutter, every dog bark, read just like a play. It said Reality Winner verbatim transcription and big text at the top. And then it said Participants, where it would say characters in a play script, and it listed Reality Winner in the name of two agents, Agent Garrick and Agent Taylor. And then the fourth participant was unknown male.

[4:18] Tina Satter: And I was like, oh my God, it's very inherently dramatic because she and all of those agents all know by the minute her life is changing. I mean, you almost can't have a more dramatic setup. The importance of telling this very timely, very true story was not lost on Tina. She felt strongly that the play could contribute significantly to the national debate about what really happened during the 2016 election.

[4:46] Tina Satter: For all of us personally at that point in time in the U.S., discourse and values were sort of changing in front of our eyes. I had never made work that sat so overtly politically. What are we supposed to do in these moments? How do we advocate? How do we do activism? If my art's my main thing, I kind of got to work on something that by then more and more we were feeling could be a really important artistic document around what it meant to live through Trump and in Trump's America in that time.

[5:16] Tina Satter: Who is Reality Winner? So in 2017, Reality Winner was 25 years old. She had spent five or six years in the Air Force, where she'd been a crypto linguist in the Air Force, like learned three incredibly hard Arabic languages, Pashto, Farsi, and Dari. Very hard to learn. Reality had just begun working at an NSA facility in Augusta, Georgia. The debate over whether Russia had interfered in the 2016 election was all over the news.

[5:49] Alison Grinter-Allen: You can talk all you want about Russia, which was all a, you know, fake news fabricated deal to try and make up for the loss of the Democrats. And the press plays right into it. In fact, I saw a couple of the people. In fact, Reality had registered complaints that Fox News was playing nonstop in the office, repeating claims that there was no interference by Russia whatsoever.

[6:11] Alison Grinter-Allen: Reality is sitting at her desk, seeing the public discourse completely underestimate the extent of Russian interference in the election. And meanwhile, she's looking at an intelligence assessment that really spells out that the Russians interfered not just in disinformation and in the public sphere, but also hacked into our actual voting systems manufacturers, the actual infrastructure of American democracy, that the infiltration was that specific and that threatening.

[6:56] Alison Grinter-Allen: She knew that the public needed to know the truth, that if we're going to discuss it, if we're going to have a serious conversation about why foreign governments would want to interfere in our democracy, what links people are willing to go to in order to influence the American election. And so Reality printed out an article that was on essentially NSA Reddit. I mean, this was the number one trending topic in U.S. intelligence. Reality printed out on paper. She folded it up and snuck it out of the building in her pantyhose and mailed it anonymously to a then up-and-coming media startup called The Intercept, who'd basically been saying, if anyone can show us proof of this, send it our way.

[7:48] Alison Grinter-Allen: She does that in mid-May and sits with that knowledge for like three weeks. And suddenly out of the blue, the FBI shows up at her house.

[7:59] Billie Winner-Davis: And so that Saturday, June 3rd, 2017, from what I understand is she got up and went to the grocery store just like every other Saturday. And when she arrived at her home, that was when they followed her into her driveway. The black SUVs that the government uses and two FBI agents then approached her on her porch, introduced themselves and basically told her that they need to speak with her about some things. It was actually 11 FBI agents that showed up that day.

[8:46] Alison Grinter-Allen: The FBI shows up on her lawn. That's not a terrifically uncommon thing for somebody with a security clearance. They do checks. They do backgrounds. The FBI is not a completely unfamiliar site if you have a security clearance. But this many agents, 11, nine of whom are armed, show up at her house and say that they have some questions. They walk her into the house. They put her in a position where she will be uncomfortable. And they begin questioning her. They create a really tense scene that is borne out really beautifully in the play.

[9:33] Billie Winner-Davis: Audio from the Broadway play, Is This a Room? This is my partner, partner Wally Taylor.

[9:50] Wally Taylor: Hey, how are you?

[9:54] Reality Winner: Hey.

[9:55] Wally Taylor: How are you?

[9:56] Reality Winner: Good.

[9:57] Wally Taylor: How's your day today?

[10:00] Reality Winner: It's pretty good. Just got some groceries.

[10:03] Wally Taylor: All right. Let's show you who we are.

[10:04] Reality Winner: Okay.

[10:05] Wally Taylor: Well, the reason we're here today is that we have a search warrant for your house.

[10:09] Reality Winner: Okay.

[10:10] Wally Taylor: All right. Do you know what this might be about?

[10:12] Reality Winner: I have no idea.

[10:14] Wally Taylor: Okay. This is about possible mishandling of classified information.

[10:17] Reality Winner: Oh, my goodness.

[10:19] Dori Berenstein: Reality's initial chat with the FBI sounded very casual, but clearly it was a very carefully thought through dance of entrapment. What they were doing is setting up a situation where on paper, it would look like we're having a friendly chat. It looks like, hey, she's in her own house. She goes and gets water. She goes to the bathroom. Her dogs are around her. We're just having a friendly talk. What the agents are doing is setting up a situation where a judge will not see what's going on as what's called a custodial interrogation.

[11:04] Dori Berenstein: If they had arrested her and brought her into the station and set her up on a table with her handcuffed to the table, like on law and order, they'd have to read her Miranda rights. They'd have to tell her that she has the right to stop this questioning at any time that she has the right to speak with her lawyer before she says anything. Hold on. This is worth repeating. Reality Winner was never read her Miranda rights or offered the opportunity to get a lawyer. And she would have because she's no dope. She knows trouble when she sees it and she knows how to be quiet.

[11:35] Dori Berenstein: Instead, they began an interrogation that's really, really common in style all throughout the criminal justice system. They did a read method interrogation. It's a textbook cop school interrogation where you give the person space to tell their story in their words. Hey, we're here looking into the general issue of this. And so once the person tells whatever they're going to tell, then you stop them and say, well, you know that we know more about this than we're telling you. And we know that you're involved.

[12:11] Billie Winner-Davis: Gary is Billie's husband and Reality's stepfather. So on this evening, Reality called Gary because that's who you call when you're in trouble. And so she called Gary and he let me know that she was there at her home with FBI agents and that they were taking her into custody. And he did not know anything more than that. Just that she would call us once she was settled and let us know more.

[12:49] Brittany Winner: My phone was on vibrate because I put my phone on vibrate when I go to movies and my phone just kept vibrating in my pocket. And I kept getting calls from this unfamiliar number. I was just annoyed. I was like, why are these telemarketers getting so aggressive that they're

[13:09] Brittany Winner: My mom was calling me from the same number and I had probably 12 missed calls. I ignored them. And then when I got home, my mom texted me and said that she and my stepdad, Gary, were on their way to Georgia. And that Reality was in trouble. The sinking feeling that kind of pervaded over the next four years, there's something really serious going on. And then my mom told me that Reality was in jail. And that's when it really dawned on me that it was Reality who was trying to call me 12, 15, I don't know, 20 times from this number. And I just felt so bad because all I had to do was pick up the phone. All I had to do was, you know, get out of the movie. Like if I had known I would have picked up the phone, I would have been there for her.

But neither Billie nor Brittany had any idea at that point why Reality had been arrested. We had no idea whatsoever, like what, what they were taking her into custody for, what she was being arrested for, what she was being charged with. We just had to wait for more news. You know, you couldn't call her, you couldn't call anyone to find out what was going on. So we just had to wait. So she called us probably, I want to say maybe two or three hours later when she was at the jail. She let us know where she was at, Lincoln County Jail.

[14:28] Brittany Winner: When Reality finally reached me, she needed my help to get her affairs in order. And I just remember feeling so confused because at that point, Reality was telling me that she needed me to do things for her. Like she needed me to contact some yoga class or some spin class that she couldn't teach. Why are you worrying about this? They'll get somebody else to cover it. And she feels such a sense of responsibility for her commitments and the people that, you know, she was teaching and the people that she was interacting with there in Georgia. And maybe she was trying to distract herself with the little things. But for me, I was like, this is not going to be good. This is not going to be something that's going to go away so that, you know, next week on Monday, she'll come back to her class and she'll have a fun story to tell. Like, that's not how the story is going to go. I could not have predicted how bad things were going to get.

[15:23] Alison Grinter Allen: More on the arrest from Allison Grinter Allen, Reality's lawyer. They put her in an impossible situation and really coerced a confession. After the confession, they took her into custody. And that was the last time she saw daylight until very, very recently when she came out of prison. And that is remarkable because someone who does not present a danger, somebody who does not present a flight risk, somebody who doesn't have an out of control drug problem or a violent history or any kind of criminal history, it's almost unheard of for that person to not be released on bail.

[16:09] Alison Grinter Allen: Reality Winner, and that is her real name, will appear here in federal court for the second time in a little more than 24 hours from now. Right now, she is being held in the county jail on espionage charges. Her parents, who she actually called as the FBI was in the process of arresting her, got in their car and drove from Texas to Georgia to feed her cat. And then they decided we want to speak out on her behalf. I know that she's scared. She is scared that they won't let her out. Her daughter, Reality Lee Winner, is now the defendant in the Trump administration's first criminal leak case. Billie Jean Davis says the 25-year-old was frightened by her arrest last Saturday. Her words to me were that she was really scared that they would make her disappear.

The Department of Justice says Winner admitted to taking a top-secret intelligence document dated May 5th, which details hacking by the Russian military intelligence. The government claims that when Winner retained and transmitted classified national defense information, she could have compromised the security of the United States.

[17:12] Billie Winner-Davis: I'm terrified. I'm terrified that she's not going to be treated fairly and that they're going to try to make an example of her. And that's not fair. So why did this happen? How could this have happened? We're going to find the leakers. They're going to pay a big price for leaking. Reality was made an example of. Reality released information that directly contradicted the narrative that the Trump administration was pushing out, that Russia did not attempt to interfere in the 2016 election. And because Reality released the classified memo that directly pointed to the fact that, yes, the U.S. intelligence agencies did detect an attempt by the Russian state-operated hacker group to essentially mount a spear-phishing campaign against the election officials in multiple United States states, you know, regarding the 2016 election.

Reality was somebody who took a stand. She saw something that would set the record straight. She thought that if she just released this document to The Intercept, if The Intercept published it, then that would kind of settle things once and for all about Russian interference in the 2016 election.

[18:27] Alison Grinter Allen: FBI interrogators told Reality they didn't think she was the type to do this sort of thing. Both Billie and Brittany agree. But at the same time, neither were entirely shocked. Reality has never really been one to embrace the spotlight or make things about her. She's never really been an attention seeker. She's amazingly funny. She's hilarious. And she's got kind of like a biting, acerbic wit about things. She never set out to try to be a hero or she probably would never have classified herself as a whistleblower. I'm both surprised and shocked that she actually did something like this. But at the same time, I'm not surprised or shocked because Reality feels things so deeply. And then she turns around and she lives them and commits to them as probably arguably the person that's closest to her in this world.

I can picture Reality sitting there at her desk, seeing that classified memo, looking up at the corner where there's a TV on in the office with Fox News playing and Trump repeating over and over again that there's no collusion, that Russia is a hoax, that there was no interference in the election. He made the decision to tweet out fake news political witch hunt. I would go a step further and say it's not just fake news, it's just fake. And then James Comey is fired and she just has to do something. She says, I am the only one who can do this, who will do this. She printed out the document, put it in her pantyhose apparently, put it in an envelope addressed to The Intercept and stuck it in a mailbox and tried to go on with her life, thinking that her job was done, that she did her duty to notify the American public that this happened, that this is real.

Russian attempted interference in the 2016 presidential election was real and it was true. So to set the record straight, she did a thing. The calculation on her part was America needed to know and whatever happens, happens. She probably didn't think that she was going to spend the next four years in prison.

[21:00] Billie Winner-Davis: Reality Winner leaked a secret report on Russian election hacking to the media and will now serve more than five years in prison. That's the longest sentence ever imposed for this kind of violation. The former NSA contractor and Air Force linguist has been held in a Georgia jail since last June and is currently awaiting transfer to a federal prison after her sentencing last week. And the only reason that the American public knows that this happened is because my sister, Reality Winner, released this document and she had nothing to gain and she had everything to lose. And she lost everything to bring this to our attention. I'm just thankful that she didn't lose her life. I don't think that Reality deserves to be a felon for the rest of her life.

She served her time. She's paid for her supposed crime. She'll never hold a top secret clearance or any sort of clearance ever again. She'll probably never be able to work for the government. But Reality deserves to live her life.

[22:10] Billie Winner-Davis: On the upcoming episodes of This Is Reality, we'll dive into Reality's trial, the conviction under the Espionage Act of 1917, and Reality's very challenging experience in jail, including surviving COVID while incarcerated. But let's wrap up this episode by hearing where Reality is now and the efforts that are underway to protect her future.

[22:30] Billie Winner-Davis: Reality has a petition for clemency and that's being ignored. And we all know also that the President of the United States can issue a pardon if that's something that they want to do. And that's something that I truly want for Reality is to, at some point in her life, be 100% free. Clemency is asking for the President of the United States to end that for her. She has already served so much time. She has already been punished enough, you know, and she's not a threat to society. She can never talk about what she did, why she did it, how she did it, ever. She can never, ever talk about that. And I think that pardoning her, you know, releasing her from that agreement, those stipulations, would be so important for not only for her, but for us, for America to hear from her, to hear about why she did what she did.

[23:40] Alison Grinter Allen: The editor-in-chief of The Intercept, the news organization that received the leaked document, said this about Reality. Instead of being recognized as a conscious, driven whistleblower whose disclosure helped protect U.S. elections, Winner was prosecuted with vicious resolve.

[24:00] Brittany Winner: Reality's sister, Brittany, sums it up perfectly. There are some people who believe that she deserves an award, a Presidential Medal of Freedom, which would be awesome and amazing. But we'll settle for Reality just getting her life back so that she can live in some semblance of normality, because she doesn't deserve this. She doesn't deserve to be painted like a traitor because she did America a service. The least that we can do as a country, again, is to just let her live her life again.

[24:34] Billie Winner-Davis: You can support Reality by signing her petition for clemency at StandWithReality.org. Please join us for the next episode of This Is Reality. And for more information and tickets to all productions of Is This a Room? visit bpn.fm slash This Is Reality. And make sure to check out all the podcasts on the Broadway Podcast Network.

[24:56] Host: Thanks to our very special guests, Billie Jean Winner-Davis, Brittany Winner, Alison Grinter Allen, and Is This a Room? director and conceiver, Tina Satter. We're also very grateful to the Is This a Room? cast, Emily Davis, Becca Blackwell, Will Cobbs, and Pete Simpson, and the entire Is This a Room? company. This podcast is created, written, and produced by Dori Berenstain, Sally Horchow, Rebecca Aparicio, and the Broadway Podcast Network. Sound engineers are Alan Seals and Kimberly Garris. Producer's editor is Alan Seals. Executive producer is Liz Armstrong. This Is Reality is part of the Gotham's fiscal sponsorship program under the Sound & Light Project. Lead producers of Is This a Room? on Broadway are Dori Berenstain, Sally Horchow, and Matt Ross.

Please join us for our next episode of This Is Reality by following and finding out more information on bpn.fm slash This Is Reality. And finally, special thanks to Bea Westby, Katie Rosen, Ayanna Prescod, and the rest of the team at the Broadway Podcast Network.