Donald Trump says he is considering pardon for leaker Edward Snowden
President Donald Trump said on Saturday he is considering a pardon for Edward Snowden, the former US National Security Agency contractor — now living in Russia — whose spectacular leaks shook the US intelligence community in 2013.
The Republican president's comments followed an interview
Trump gave to the New York Post this week in which he said of Snowden that
“there are a lot of people that think that he is not being treated fairly” by
US law enforcement.
US authorities for years have wanted Snowden returned to the
US to face a criminal trial on espionage charges brought in 2013.
Snowden fled the US and was given asylum in Russia after he
leaked a trove of secret files in 2013 to news organisations that revealed vast
domestic and international surveillance operations carried out by the NSA.
Trump's softening stance towards Snowden represents a sharp
reversal. Shortly after the leaks, Trump expressed hostility towards Snowden,
calling him “a spy who should be executed.”
“I'm going to start looking at it,” Trump told reporters
about a possible pardon, speaking at a news conference at his Bedminster, New
Jersey golf club.
Trump said he thinks Americans on both the political left
and the right are divided on Snowden.
“It seems to be a split decision,” Trump told reporters.
“Many people think he should be somehow treated differently. And other people
think he did very bad things.”
Some civil libertarians have praised Snowden for revealing
the extraordinary scope of America's digital espionage operations including
domestic spying programmes that senior US officials had publicly insisted did
not exist.
But such a move would horrify many in the US intelligence
community, some of whose most important secrets were exposed. Trump has harshly
criticised past leaders of the US intelligence community and FBI, and on
Thursday took aim at the bureau's current director Christopher Wray, his own
appointee.
The US Justice Department filed a lawsuit last September
against Snowden, arguing that his recently published memoir, “Permanent
Record”, violated non-disclosure agreements.
The Justice Department said Snowden published the book
without submitting it to intelligence agencies for review, adding that speeches
given by Snowden also violated nondisclosure agreements.
Trump's use of his executive clemency powers including
pardons often has benefited allies and well-connected political figures.
He last month commuted the sentence of his longtime friend
and adviser Roger Stone, sparing him from prison after he was convicted of
lying under oath to lawmakers investigating Russian interference in the 2016 US
election to boost Trump's candidacy.
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