The CIA raised red flags on Edward Snowden that were never forwarded to the National Security Agency when it hired the contractor and afforded him him access to thousands of classified documents, according to a New York Times report published Thursday.
Snowden’s supervisor at the CIA in Geneva wrote a derogatory report in his personnel file in 2009, citing a distinct shift in Snowden’s behavior and work habits, according to the Times. The CIA then decided to send him home because it suspected the contractor was trying to break into classified files he was not authorized to access, two unnamed senior officials said.
The supervisor’s report and the CIA’s suspicions never reached the NSA and only surfaced after Snowden’s leaking of classified documents to several newspapers sparked a federal investigation, according to intelligence and law enforcement officials who spoke with the Times.
“It slipped through the cracks,” one veteran law enforcement official told the Times of the supervisor’s report.
