Security News > 2020 > August > Barr 'Vehemently Opposed' to Pardoning Snowden

Attorney General William Barr said he would be "Vehemently opposed" to any attempt to pardon former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, after the president suggested he might consider it.

"There are many, many people - it seems to be a split decision that many people think that he should be somehow treated differently, and other people think he did very bad things," Trump said of Snowden at a news conference on Saturday.

Snowden remains in Russia to avoid prosecution even as the federal charges against him are pending.

Any effort to pardon Snowden would unquestionably infuriate senior intelligence officials, who say his disclosures caused extraordinary damage and will have repercussions for years to come.

In a memoir published last year, Snowden wrote that his seven years working for the NSA and CIA led him to conclude that the U.S. intelligence community had "Hacked the Constitution" and put everyone's liberty at risk and that he had no choice but to turn to journalists to reveal it to the world.

News URL

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Securityweek/~3/MrJmtOWFVYA/barr-vehemently-opposed-pardoning-snowden