The 45th President of the United States Donald J. Trump said on Saturday that he’s considering granting a pardon to whistle-blower Edward Snowden.
In 2013, he was charged with violating the Espionage Act, which carries a prison sentence. If he continues to face those charges, Mr Snowden has said, he will not return to the United States.
“There are many, many people – it seems to be a split decision – many people think that he should be somehow be treated differently and other people think he did very bad things,” The President said.
“I’m going to take a look at that very strongly,” Trump said during a news conference at his golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey.
Speculation about a pardon for Mr Snowden has been grown since the President commented on the case in an interview with the New York Post on Thursday. “There are a lot of people that think that he is not being treated fairly,” President Trump said in the interview. “I mean, I hear that.”
Disclosures revealed by Mr Snowden, who sought asylum in Russia in 2013, set off a pressing and continuous debate about surveillance and privacy in the United States and many other Western nations.
Mr Snowden’s critics have accused him of treason for revealing classified information while privacy and civil liberties advocates have praised him for exposing the scope of the government’s surveillance programmes.
Human rights groups urged the then-President Barack Obama to pardon Mr Snowden, but they had no success.
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Editor-in-Chief | Carl D. Pearson has been involved in British politics and media from an early age, with the key knowledge of what it takes to run a news organisation for the 21st century. Mr Pearson, as Editor-in-chief, is responsible for supervising the daily tasks of publishing media and content to UNN’s website and various platforms.
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