Trump says he is considering pardon for leaker Edward Snowden

[August 17, 2020]    By Raphael Satter

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday he is considering a pardon for Edward Snowden, the former U.S. National Security Agency contractor - now living in Russia - whose spectacular leaks shook the U.S. intelligence community in 2013.

Edward Snowden speaks via video link during a news conference in New York City, U.S. September 14, 2016. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

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 U.S. law enforcement.

"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.

U.S. authorities for years have wanted Snowden returned to the United States to face a criminal trial on espionage charges brought in 2013.

Snowden fled the United States and was given asylum in Russia after he leaked a trove of secret files in 2013 to news organizations that revealed vast domestic and international surveillance operations carried out by the NSA.

Snowden's Russian lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, told RIA news agency the United States should not simply pardon him, but should drop all possible prosecutions against Snowden as he had not commited any crimes.

"He was acting not only in the interest of the American citizens, but in the interest of all the humankind," Kucherena said.

Trump's softening stance toward Snowden represents a sharp reversal. Shortly after the leaks, Trump expressed hostility toward Snowden, calling him "a spy who should be executed."

Trump said on Saturday 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."

DOMESTIC SPYING

Some civil libertarians have praised Snowden for revealing the extraordinary scope of America's digital espionage operations including domestic spying programs that senior U.S. officials had publicly insisted did not exist.

But such a move would horrify many in the U.S. intelligence community, some of whose most important secrets were exposed. Trump has harshly criticized past leaders of the U.S. intelligence community and FBI, and on Thursday took aim at the bureau's current director Christopher Wray, his own appointee.

The U.S. Justice Department filed a lawsuit last September against Snowden, arguing that the memoir he published last year, "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 has often benefited allies and well-connected political figures.

Last month he 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 U.S. election to boost Trump's candidacy.

(Reporting by Raphael Satter; Additional reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin in Moscow; Editing by Daniel Wallis, Will Dunham and Frances Kerry)

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