US President Donald Trump says he is considering pardoning former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden who is currently living in Russia after he leaked secret documents about US telephone and Internet surveillance in 2013.
Trump’s comments followed his interview with the New York Post earlier this week in which, while commenting on Snowden, he said, "there are a lot of people that think that he is not being treated fairly" by US law enforcement.
Snowden, who is wanted in the US to face a criminal trial on espionage charges, was granted asylum by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
During his tenure at NSA, he downloaded tens of thousands of classified top secret US documents and then published them. The documents exposed the huge extent of US spying across the world, on friends and foes alike.
The publication of the documents dealt a heavy blow to the US government, causing it an international scandal.
The new comments by Trump represents a sharp reversal as the Republican president called Snowden "a spy who should be executed" after he leaked the documents.
However, on Saturday, he told reporters that “I’m going to start looking at it,” referring to a possible pardon.
He went on to say that he believed Americans on both the political left and the right are divided on the former contractor.
“It seems to be a split decision,” he said at a news conference at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club. “Many people think he should be somehow treated differently. And other people think he did very bad things.”
Snowden was praised by many, including civil libertarians, for disclosing the extraordinary scope of America’s digital espionage operations.
In 2016, the German city of Kassel, for instance, awarded him for the "courage and conscience" that he showed in spilling US classified information.
Snowden "with courage, competence and reason has taken a conscience decision and put his past life and safety at stake for a bigger thing,” the organizers said, awarding him the Glass of Reason, worth 10,000 euros.
Trump’s use of his executive clemency powers including pardons has often had benefits for allies and well-connected political figures.
Last month, Trump commuted the prison sentence of his long-time friend and political advisor Roger Stone. Stone was convicted in November of seven charges, including lying to Congress and witness tampering in connection with special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
