Edward Snowden’s Suggestion for Obama: A Presidential Pardon
The whistleblower says the president should grant him impunity because the information he leaked was in service of the public good.
“I think when people look at the calculations of benefit, it is clear that in the wake of 2013 the laws of our nation changed,” Snowden told The Guardian. “The [US] Congress, the courts and the president all changed their policies as a result of these disclosures. At the same time there has never been any public evidence that any individual came to harm as a result.”
.. In May, Eric Holder, the former U.S. attorney general and a close friend of Obama, said while Snowden’s leak of classified information was “inappropriate and illegal,” the whistleblower had performed a “public service.”
But the two people next in line for the power to pardon don’t agree. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump last year called Snowden a “bad guy” and suggested he be executed. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton says Snowden should return to the U.S. to face trial.