Attorney General Bill Barr said that he would be “vehemently opposed” to pardoning Edward Snowden, the self-described whistleblower who leaked classified American intelligence documents.
President Donald Trump previously said that he would “look at” pardoning Snowden, who is currently hiding in Russia.
In a press conference in mid-August, Trump was asked about pardoning Snowden and responded, “I’m gonna look at it. I’m not that aware of the Snowden situation, but I’m gonna start looking at it.”
Trump continued, “There are many, many people — it seems to be a split decision — many people think that he should be somehow treated differently and other people think he did very bad things and I’m gonna take a very good look at it.”
The president added, “I’m going to take a look at that very strongly, Edward Snowden.”
Q: "Do you want to give Edward Snowden a pardon and bring him back?"
— The Hill (@thehill) August 15, 2020
President Trump: "I'm going to look at it." pic.twitter.com/Lb75QVaGVb
But in an interview with the Associated Press, Barr shot down the idea of a Snowden pardon. Barr told the AP, “He 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 can’t tolerate that.”
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 “It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is — a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia.”