Why is Donald Trump thinking of pardoning Edward Snowden?
The President of the United States said he is looking ‘very strongly’ at granting a pardon to Edward Snowden, even though in the past he wanted his execution.
Edward Snowden is the American whistleblower who copied and leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013, when he was a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee and subcontractor. He has since been in exile in Russia since escaping the United States in the same year.
Trump changes his mind
In the past, President Donald Trump had previously called for the execution of Edward Snowden and now he is suggesting granting a pardon for the 37-year-old: “I am going to take a look at that very strongly,” said Trump during a news conference in Bedminster, New Jersey.
Trump told The New York Post that “many people think he [Snowden] should somehow be treated differently and others think he did very bad things,” with people on the left and right divided over granting a pardon as some see him as a hero while others as a traitor.
Snowden downloaded 1.5 million files when he was working at the NSA contractor based in Hawaii before leaving for Hong Kong where he shared all the information with a journalist. After that interview Snowden fled to Russia where he was granted asylum.
Snowden welcomes Trump’s consideration
"The last time we heard a White House considering a pardon was 2016, when the very same Attorney General who once charged me conceded that, on balance, my work in exposing the NSA's unconstitutional system of mass surveillance had been 'a public service,” tweeted Snowden on Friday.
Towards the end of 2016, then President Barack Obama said he wouldn’t consider a pardon until Edward Snowden stopped running from the law and back then Donald Trump tweeted that he was a traitor and that he should be executed.