Attorney General Bill Barr said that he would be āvehemently opposedā to pardoning Edward Snowden, the self-described whistleblower who leaked classified American intelligence documents.
President Donald Trump previously said that he would ālook atā pardoning Snowden, who is currently hiding in Russia.
In a press conference in mid-August, Trump was asked about pardoning Snowden and responded, āIām gonna look at it. Iām not that aware of the Snowden situation, but Iām gonna start looking at it.ā
Trump continued, āThere are many, many people ā it seems to be a split decision ā many people think that he should be somehow treated differently and other people think he did very bad things and Iām gonna take a very good look at it.ā
The president added, āIām going to take a look at that very strongly, Edward Snowden.ā
But in an interview with the Associated Press, Barr shot down the idea of a Snowden pardon. Barr told the AP, āHe was a traitor and the information he provided our adversaries greatly hurt the safety of the American people. He was peddling it around like a commercial merchant. We canāt tolerate that.ā
In 2013, Snowden was charged with three felonies that included disclosing communications intelligence information, theft of government property, and conveying classified information to an unauthorized party. But he is unlikely to face justice in the United States as he is currently staying in Russia.
Snowden also had a relationship with Wikileaks, which Russian actors reportedly used as a middleman to dump emails hacked from prominent Democratic officials in the months before the 2016 election. Wikileaks submitted asylum requests for Snowden in 2013, when he first went on the run.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was blunt in his assessment of Wikileaks in 2017, saying āIt is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is ā a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia.ā