Snowden To Critics: ‘Ask The State Department’ Why I’m In Russia

Edward Snowden sits down for an interview with NBC News.
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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.”

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