Edward Snowden has heard the American critics who find it suspicious that he ended up in Russia after pulling off perhaps the most extraordinary intelligence leak ever. His message to them: take it up with the State Department.
Snowden told NBC News anchor Brian Williams in an interview excerpt that aired Wednesday morning that he “never intended” to land in Russia and said he’s “personally surprised” that he wound up there.
“I had a flight booked to Cuba onwards to Latin America and I was stopped because the United States government decided to revoke my passport and trap me in Moscow Airport,” he said, as quoted by NBC. “So when people ask why are you in Russia, I say, ‘Please ask the State Department.”
Williams went to Russia last week for the interview with Snowden and Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, who has reported extensively on the National Security Agency surveillance programs. The interview will be Snowden’s first on American television since last summer’s historic leak.
Both Snowden and Greenwald have been scrutinized over the former’s asylum in Russia. In March, longtime national security reporter Tom Ricks wrote that he was “beginning to believe the worst” about Snowden and Greenwald, suggesting that they may be in cahoots with Vladimir Putin’s government.
Greenwald didn’t take that criticism lightly, and he’s spent much of the last several months defending Snowden’s asylum. During a mostly light-hearted interview with satirist Stephen Colbert earlier this month, Greenwald said the “point of seeking asylum is not to declare which country you love the most.”
“It’s to get protection from your own government when they’re trying to persecute you, such as putting you in prison for 40 years for coming forward with information his fellow citizens ought to have known,” Greenwald said.
In his own interview with NBC on Wednesday, Secretary of State John Kerry panned Snowden’s comments.
“For a supposedly smart guy, that’s a pretty dumb answer, frankly,” Kerry said. “If Mr. Snowden wants to come back to the United States today, we’ll have him on a flight today.”
Kerry said. “If Mr. Snowden wants to come back to the United States today, we’ll have him on a flight today.”
Yeah—then he can get locked up incommunicado like Bradley/Chelsea Manning.
The man is a victim! They didn’t screw him as bad as Bundy yet, but soon even Snowden may be holding a press conference with a dead calf in his arms, that’s how serious this is!!
I thought the same thing. Snowden wants to be anywhere that won’t land him in prison. Russia is merely the only place that can happen right now so he is stuck there. It is absolutely the State Department’s fault that he is in Russia today.
You could even make a good argument that stranding him in Russia was a really bad idea. He has a lot of sensitive information about US intelligence, and you put him at the mercy of Putin? Should have let him fly to Ecuador or Bolivia. Who cares what he tells them, just so long as the Russians don’t find out.
Please. In Russia all the calves die from frost-bite.
Right. Because as a civilian, Snowden would be subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice and all of the other stuff that comes with the voluntary surrender of civil rights that occurs when you join the military.
What will happen if he comes home is that he’ll be arrested and arraigned, he’ll be put in jail, his bail application will be denied in light of his proven flight risk history, then he’ll get a lawyer and his case will be docketed for trial. He’ll get all the Due Process he’s due.
That said, his future would be sufficiently dire to make his desire to stay away perfectly understandable without engaging in hyperbole. The evidence against him is damning, given the number of incriminating statements he’s made and if he’s convicted or pleads guilty, he’ll do a lot of very hard time. The federal sentencing guidelines are inflexible and people with heads full of secrets don’t do their time at Club Fed.
But FFS, he’s a civilian and a celebrity. The idea that he’ll just disappear down some black hole is fucking idiotic and every time you guys put that up as a possibility, you just make yourselves look like hysterical ninnies.