— “since @realDonaldTrump clearly believes in time machines, why don’t you go back to Nazi Germany” —Oct. 19, 2016

— #notmypresident#Recount2016" —Nov. 29, 2016

— “When we deploy ‘All Lives Matter’ as to correct an intervention specifically created to address anti-blackness,, [sic] we lose the way in which the state apparatus has built a program of genocide and repression mostly on the backs of Black people — beginning with the theft of millions of people for free labor—and then adapted it to control, murder, and profit off of other communities of color and immigrant communities.” —Jan 15, 2017

— “#TrumpIsAC*nt,” Jan, 30, 2017

— “There are many Americans protesting US govt aggression towards Iran. If our Tangerine in Chief declares war, we stand with you!” —Feb. 7, 2017

— “the most dangerous entry to this country was the orange fascist we let into the white house” —Feb. 11, 2017

— “@jeffsessions #Congrats on being confirmed as #ConfederateGeneral #SNLSessions” —Feb 12, 2017

— “@kanyewest you should make a shirt that says, ‘being white is terrorism’” —Feb. 25, 2017

Something truly rotten is going on at the National Security Agency (NSA). All of the above statements were posted on Twitter by Reality Winner, the 25-year-old NSA contractor arrested for allegedly leaking classified information to a news outlet. Winner tweeted under the pseudonym Sara Winners, but each post contained her picture, removing any doubt that someone else posted the messages. In addition, her now unavailable Facebook page contained a reference to Trump as a “Soulless ginger orangutan:”

What’s rotten? A timeline of Winner’s activities published by Axios and corroborated by CNN says it all. To wit from Axios: “Feb. 13: Winner, a contractor with Pluribus International Corporation is assigned to a U.S. government agency facility in Georgia, at which point she is given top security clearance.”

Thus, with the exception of the final one shown above, every other tweet by Winner was published prior to the NSA granting her top security clearance, prior to making Donald Trump her commander in chief, and prior to granting her access to some portion of the nation’s most sensitive classified intelligence.

According to Twitter’s privacy policy, “any registered user of Twitter can send a Tweet, which is public by default” (emphasis added). Facebook? Information shared with the public includes “people who aren’t your friends, people off of Facebook and people who use different media such as print, broadcast (ex: television) and other sites on the Internet,” its website states.

In other words, Winner’s posts were widely available, even more so if “anyone” had a vested interest in accessing them. Anyone, for example, like background-checkers at the NSA who are ostensibly required to do a thorough vetting of a candidate for top security clearance.

To be clear, Winner is certainly entitled to express her opinion. But as we have just witnessed with regard to the Kathy Griffin debacle, (and despite what many leftists believe), expressed opinions are not immune to the consequences engendered by them. Moreover the electorate voted for Donald Trump. It did not vote for an intelligence community infested with progressive zealots determined to undermine his presidency.

Thus one is left to wonder how it is — exactly — a Trump-bashing, Caucasian-condemning, radical leftist who believes “white terrorist” America is engaged in genocide and repression of minorities, not only gets that security clearance, but maintains it. Maintains it right up to the point she is indicted by a grand jury for “willful retention and transmission of national defense information,” and right up to the point where a judge denied her bond because prosecutors revealed more charges were likely, and that she was a flight risk.

Why a flight risk? “Based on evidence seized from her home, federal prosecutors detailed Winner’s alleged plans to burn down the White House and travel to Afghanistan, pledging her allegiance to the Taliban,” WSB-TV reported. Prosecutors further noted that recorded jail house calls revealed a damnable quote: “Mom, those documents. I screwed up,” Winner stated. They also revealed Winner instructed her mother how to play her story “as someone who was scared she’d disappear from an interrogation room in her Augusta home after Saturday’s raid.” And as Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Solari revealed, one call quoted Winner as saying she planned to “play that card: being pretty, white and cute.”

Cue Winner’s anti-Trump media abettors. “She served her country; she is a veteran,” her stepfather, Gary Davis, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper prior to her indictment. “She’s a patriot, and to see her maligned and slandered in the media is very disheartening.” He needs a refresher on the meaning of the word Patriot.

Winner’s mother, Billie Winner-Davis, told NBC exactly what her daughter asked her to say. “Her words to me was [sic] that she was scared she was going to be — they were going to make her disappear,” Winner-Davis stated. She continued, “She would not jeopardize anybody’s safety. She would not. I can tell you that for certainty,” she added. “She loves children. She loves animals. … She’s not a threat to anyone. She’s not a violent person.”

U.S. Attorney Jennifer Solari paints a decidedly different picture, explaining Winner inserted a portable hard drive into a top secret Air Force computer prior to leaving the military last year — the whereabouts and content of which remain unknown — and that her laptop contained software capable of giving her access to online black-market items like a fake ID or a passport, while masking her identity and location.

If Winner is convicted, she faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

All well and good, save for one reality and two highly ominous possibilities. The reality is that, despite her talent as a cryptologic language analyst, and a seemingly distinguished career that earned her an Air Force Commendation Medal in 2016, Winner demonstrates an appalling lack of maturity one might assume is a requirement for a sensitive position at the NSA. But far more important, she is a cog in an NSA machine. There are those who possess far more power and authority than Winner herself.

Which brings us to those highly ominous possibilities. Is it possible the vetting procedures at the NSA are so lax that Winner’s radical track record escaped attention? Considering the oft-reported scope of the NSA’s far-reaching technical prowess, such a possibility seems utterly fantastic. This is an agency that can ostensibly access more information than any other entity on the planet, but they missed Winner’s social media posts?

The chances of that are virtually nil, which raises the far more ominous possibility: Those who vetted Winner, as well as the superiors who allowed her to maintain her security clearance, had no problem with those postings — or worse, agreed with them.

Are they also being questioned? If not, why not? America has been subjected to a plethora of felonious leaking by anonymous sources within the intel community — including at least one leak by former FBI Director James Comey — every bit of which has the singular purpose of delegitimizing the presidency of Donald Trump.

Winner represents the top of the swamp, and it’s way past time the Trump administration got to the bottom of it. If it does not, a government “of, by and for the people” will be no longer exist — if it still exists now.