Former NSA contractor Reality Winner, who was sentenced to more than five years in prison for leaking a secret report on Russian election hacking efforts to the media, said Thursday she was grateful to President Donald Trump for for calling her penalty "so unfair."
"President Trump has come out and said, 'wait a minute, this is really unfair, there's this double standard here,' Winner told "CBS This Morning" in a telephone interview from prison.
Last Friday, Trump tweeted that Winner was sentenced to 63 months in jail, and that it was "unfair," and what she'd done was "small potatoes" compared to "What Hillary Clinton did."
Winner, the first person sentenced under the Espionage Act since Trump took office, received the longest punishment ever imposed for the kind of infraction she did, and she says she "deeply" regrets her actions.
Winner said Trump's "unfair" characterization was something that was not allowed to be used by either herself or her team or family.
"I can't thank him enough for finally saying what everybody has been thinking for 16 months," Winner said.
The report that was leaked showed Russian efforts to infiltrate a Florida-based voting software supplier and to obtain accounts of election officials before the 2016 presidential election.
Winner said watching the Russia investigation unfold from behind bars has been "vindicating but also frustrating."