Background
Snowden was charged under the Espionage Act in 2013 with disclosing details of highly classified government surveillance programs. Since the leaks, Snowden has been in exile in Russia. The information released showed the public myriad programs that no doubt embarrassed US and other intelligence officials. A Wikipedia article details many: ” On June 5, 2013, media reports documenting the existence and functions of classified surveillance programs and their scope began and continued throughout the entire year. The first program to be revealed was PRISM, which allows for court-approved direct access to Americans’ Google and Yahoo accounts, reported from both The Washington Post and The Guardian published one hour apart.[145][151][152] Barton Gellman of The Washington Post was the first journalist to report on Snowden’s documents. He said the U.S. government urged him not to specify by name which companies were involved, but Gellman decided that to name them “would make it real to Americans.”[153] Reports also revealed details of Tempora, a British black-ops surveillance program run by the NSA’s British partner, GCHQ.[151][154] The initial reports included details about NSA call database, Boundless Informant, and of a secret court order requiring Verizon to hand the NSA millions of Americans’ phone records daily,”
Trump’s statement
At a news conference last Saturday Trump said: “There are many, many people – it seems to be a split decision that many people think that he should be somehow treated differently, and other people think he did very bad things. And I’m going to take a very good look at it.”
In the past Trump has called Snowden a traitor who even deserved execution, but he now claims as in the above quote that many people think he should be treated differently and that this has caused him to consider a pardon.
Trump’s Attorney General’s position on a Snowden pardon
William Barr, the US Attorney General said:”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.”
Barr noted that many top officials in the intelligence community who were embarrassed by Snowden’s would be very much opposed to any pardon and would be very angry if a Snowden pardon were granted. Barr did not give any evidence that the release of the information actually hurt the safety of the American people.
Over two dozen members of the European Parliament sent a letter to Trump urging him to grant Snowden a pardon.
