"We should always make a distinction, that right and wrong is a very
different standard than legal and illegal. The law is no substitute for
morality." ~Edward Snowden
The Katie Couric Interview
The Katie Couric Interview
Exclusive: Face-to-face with Edward Snowden in Moscow on Trump, Putin and dwindling hopes of a presidential pardon
In an exclusive interview in Russia with Yahoo Global News Anchor Katie Couric, Edward Snowden, the fugitive whistleblower who leaked information about U.S. surveillance activities, says he is “kind of encouraged” by the idea that Russian President Vladimir Putin might return him to the U.S. to stand trial because that would show the world he’s not a spy and Russia “doesn’t own me.”
But
he also acknowledged he isn’t eager to return home to face U.S.
justice, saying such a prospect “would be a threat to my liberty and to
my life.”
Speaking
for 90 minutes in a Moscow hotel room, Snowden — calm and completely
unrepentant — also took new swipes at top U.S. intelligence officials,
claiming they have accused him of damaging national security only
because they were “embarrassed” by his disclosures of classified
National Security Agency documents and worried about their
“reputations.”
Those
comments drew an angry rebuke Sunday from the Obama administration’s
former top counterterrorism official. “Snowden is delusional,” said Matt
Olsen, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center,
when read excerpts of the interview.
“It
wasn’t so many years ago that people were saying, ‘This guy’s a Russian
spy,’” said Snowden when asked by Couric how “nervous” he was about the
possibility of losing his Russian sanctuary and being sent home to face
criminal charges of theft of government property and violations of the
Espionage Act.
“But
countries don’t give up their spies. And if my recent criticism of the
Russian government’s Internet policies, criticisms of their human rights
record, have been so severe that even my greatest critics in the
intelligence community are now saying, ‘Oh, yeah, he’s a liability, they
wanna get him out of there,’ that’s a vindication.”
“Vindication of what?” Couric asked him.
“The
fact that I’m independent, the fact that I have always worked on behalf
of the United States, and the fact that Russia doesn’t own me,” Snowden
replied. “In fact, the Russian government may see me as sort of a
liability.”
“So you wouldn’t mind if Putin extradited you and said, ‘Here you go, President Trump’?” asked Couric.
“Well,
who wouldn’t?” Snowden answered. “I mean, that would obviously be
something that would bother me.
That would obviously be something that would be a threat to my liberty and to my life. … What I’m proud of is the fact that every decision that I made I can defend.”
That would obviously be something that would be a threat to my liberty and to my life. … What I’m proud of is the fact that every decision that I made I can defend.”
There
is no evidence that Putin is considering such a move. But Snowden’s
fate is very much uncertain: His comments come at a crucial moment for
him, three and a half years after he deserted his job as an NSA
contractor in Hawaii and fled, initially to Hong Kong, with a thumb
drive of highly classified documents that he began disclosing to
journalists.
Facing
what is expected to be an unyielding hard line from the new Trump
administration — Kansas Congressman Mike Pompeo, who is designated to be
Trump’s CIA director, has called him a “traitor”
who should be subject to the death sentence — Snowden and his allies in
the United States are mounting an aggressive public campaign for a
pardon by President Obama. “Time is running out,” reads one of the
headlines on the campaign’s website,
which also cites sympathetic comments by former Attorney General Eric
Holder that Snowden “performed a public service” by triggering a debate
about U.S. surveillance programs that led to reforms, including the end
of the bulk collection of U.S. phone records by the NSA.
But Obama has made clear,
as recently as last month, that he won’t consider a pardon until after
Snowden returns and his case is adjudicated. And even Snowden
acknowledged he’s not expecting one. “Well, I’m not counting on it,” he
told Couric when asked about a pardon.
In
the meantime, Snowden’s lawyers and defenders are privately seeking to
open discussion of a possible plea bargain that would allow him to
return home without facing a trial that could result in a long prison
sentence. A letter
to Obama and Attorney General Loretta Lynch from the Pardon Snowden
campaign, signed by 15 former staff members of the Church Committee —
which exposed abuses by the FBI and CIA in the 1970s — urged “leniency”
for Snowden, while avoiding any mention of a pardon.
In
the interview, Snowden seemed to draw a parallel between the
information he leaked to journalists in 2013 and the findings of the
committee (headed by the late Sen. Frank Church, D-Idaho), including how
U.S. intelligence agencies “were secretly administering psychedelic
drugs to college students to see the impacts they would have.”
Snowden went on: “They [the CIA] were engaging in assassination operations that were contrary to both American and international law, all kinds of crazy things. And these individuals who [signed the letter] are experts in what’s going on in intelligence at the classified level, who worked for the government, right? These aren’t sort of hippie reformers or anything like that. They argued that President Obama should seriously consider leniency in this case. He said that — or they said — that this case has caused far more benefits to American society, which I think is uncontroversial at this point, than any claimed harms for which we’ve never seen evidence.”
Snowden went on: “They [the CIA] were engaging in assassination operations that were contrary to both American and international law, all kinds of crazy things. And these individuals who [signed the letter] are experts in what’s going on in intelligence at the classified level, who worked for the government, right? These aren’t sort of hippie reformers or anything like that. They argued that President Obama should seriously consider leniency in this case. He said that — or they said — that this case has caused far more benefits to American society, which I think is uncontroversial at this point, than any claimed harms for which we’ve never seen evidence.”
“If
you had one minute to make your case face-to-face to President Obama,
what would you say to convince him to pardon you?” Couric asked.
“I
wouldn’t,” Snowden replied. “I would respectfully say to the president,
‘I understand you have an incredibly difficult job.’ No one wants to be
a whistleblower. This is something that’s hard to do. It’s hard enough
to stand up to a bully in your life, to your boss in the office, much
less the combined might of the National Security Agency, the FBI and,
you know, the apparatus of government.”
But
any consideration of leniency for Snowden will run into fierce
resistance from the U.S. intelligence community, which continues to view
the former NSA contractor as an untrustworthy renegade who deceived his
colleagues and endangered national security. This week, U.S.
intelligence officials told Yahoo News, the office of the director of
national intelligence is planning to declassify new portions of a highly
critical 36-page report by the House Intelligence Committee that
concluded Snowden was a “serial fabricator” who stole more than 1.5
million documents — 90 percent of which were military and defense
secrets unrelated to the surveillance programs involving the privacy of
U.S. citizens.
Snowden,
for his part, casually dismissed claims that his disclosures to
journalists did any damage to U.S. national security at all.
“Do
you really think if the government can show somebody was hurt, a
program was damaged, we’ve gone dark and can’t track dangerous people,
they wouldn’t leak that criticism?” Snowden replied to Couric when asked
about claims that the information he disclosed made it harder for U.S.
agencies to monitor terrorists. “That wouldn’t be on the front page of
the New York Times by the end of the day? I don’t think so. And I hope,
maybe in time, you’ll think the same.”
Couric
noted that even former Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman, who won
a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on NSA documents he received from
Snowden, recently wrote: “I do not share the view of some of his fans that he did no damage at all.”
“Can you at least acknowledge that damage might have been done as a result of your disclosures?” Couric asked Snowden.
“I
don’t agree with him in that regard,” he replied about Gellman’s
comment. “What I will say is this. Whenever we’re talking about damage
without evidence — this is an intentional effort to change the
conversation from the concrete harms of these programs that violated the
rights of every man, woman and child in the United States and people
around the world… What Barton Gellman was acknowledging there was that,
yes, it’s possible that officials could have been embarrassed by this.
Reputations could have been damaged by this. And the intelligence
community considers this to be a matter of national security. But I
would argue there’s more to national security than reputations.”
Couric
pressed: “But aren’t we talking, in fairness, more than simply
reputations or being embarrassed? Virtually every U.S. security
official, current and former, agrees that these disclosures made it more
difficult to track the movements of organizations like ISIS and other
terrorist groups.”
“I
don’t agree with that,” Snowden responded. “Terrorists read the
newspaper too. But I’ll tell you, terrorists already knew the NSA was
coming after them. And what we saw in the newspaper wasn’t anything that
they didn’t already understand. What was revealed in the newspaper was
only a surprise to Americans and ordinary citizens.”
It
was these comments that drew a sharp response from Olsen, the former
Obama administration counterterrorism director, who has said he watched
in 2013 as terrorist operatives grew “dark” and changed their
communication methods after the Snowden disclosures.
“Regardless
of his motivation, the fact is that his theft and release of an
unprecedented amount of classified information have directly aided
terrorists, Russian intelligence services, and other US adversaries,”
Olsen wrote Sunday in an email to Yahoo News. “His actions have resulted
in the loss of intelligence sources that have saved American lives
around the world.”
Olsen
added: “Snowden disclosed specific information about how the US
collects intelligence, who we work with, and where we have operations.
These are activities that are entirely lawful and most have nothing to
do with the privacy of Americans. These facts are not disputed, except
by Snowden himself and perhaps his Russian hosts, with whom he has
shared intelligence.”
Snowden,
for his part, denied sharing any information with the Russian
intelligence services. He also denied the assertion by U.S. intelligence
officials that he visited the Russian Consulate in Hong Kong before
flying to Moscow — en route, he claims, to Ecuador, only to be “trapped”
in Russia because the U.S. had revoked his passport.
Snowden’s
comments about U.S. intelligence officials being “embarrassed” by his
disclosures weren’t his only remarks in the interview that have
triggered sharp responses. Former U.S. intelligence officials and
national security experts sought to debunk his assertion,
published by Yahoo News on Sunday, that former CIA Director David
Petraeus had disclosed “far more highly classified information than I
ever did.” Petraeus, who is said to be under consideration for secretary
of state in the Trump administration, shared top-secret information
with his lover and biographer. He was forced to resign and pleaded
guilty to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified information.
“I am not in any way defending Petraeus, but I don’t think many intelligence experts would agree with this,” tweeted Tommy Vietor, a former national security spokesman for the Obama White House.
“Snowden
is apparently taking a play from Trump’s book on how to reinvent
facts,” Mark Zaid, a prominent national security lawyer, wrote in a
Facebook posting. “It is absurd to claim Petraeus’ actions were worse or
more damaging than his. Other than giving classified information to his
mistress, which is totally unacceptable (even though she had a security
clearance), the information was neither stolen nor compromised.
Moreover, it was never published. To the contrary, Snowden stole highly
classified information and DELIBERATELY compromised it by allowing the
world, which includes our enemies, to see it.”
While
insisting on his independence from Putin, Snowden seemed to echo the
Russian government’s line regarding charges that its intelligence
services hacked into Democratic Party campaign committees to influence
the 2016 election. Moscow says the Obama administration has failed to
give evidence for these allegations.
While
conceding it was “possible” that the Russians had hacked the Democrats,
Snowden added: “What bothers me about this kind of conversation is that
the last time there was a significant hack that affected the United
States that we believed had an association to a nation-state, it was the
Sony hack, which we said North Korea was behind. The FBI immediately
released evidence that they believed proved that they were behind that
attack. We haven’t seen that here. And I think if we’re gonna have this
conversation, it should be evidence-based.”
Snowden
deflected most questions about his activities that led up to his flight
to Moscow. He refused, for example, to identify any of the 10 NSA
colleagues and superiors to whom he has said he raised concerns about
U.S. surveillance before he began disclosing classified documents. Asked
why he has been unable to produce a single email in which he raised
such concerns, Snowden replied: “I’m not an email administrator” and
“These aren’t things you put in writing at NSA. Saying, ‘I think the NSA
is breaking the law. I think maybe this program is violating the
Constitution’ is a career-ending move. And the people that I talked to
first, my supervisor, said, ‘You know, hey, we can talk about this, but
you shouldn’t rock the boat, and don’t write this down.’” (The only email
that has surfaced that touches on surveillance practices, released by
the NSA, shows that Snowden asked one of the agency’s lawyers in April
2013 to “clarify” an issue about legal authorities in an agency training
manual, but expresses no concern about the NSA’s programs or potential
infringements on privacy.)
“Why
hasn’t anyone come forward, though?” Couric retorted. “Why haven’t you
given any names to corroborate the fact that you did, in fact, try to go
through the so-called proper channels?”
“Because
if I did that, they would end the careers of these individuals, right?
If these individuals spoke on their own without waiting for me, they
would go to jail.”
Snowden
— who has consistently asserted he shared documents only with
“responsible” journalists who worked for publications he knew would
carefully vet them — was also challenged on why he revealed highly
classified information about NSA hacking in China to a journalist for
the South China Morning Post while he was in Hong Kong. He defended the
disclosure, saying the institutions being hacked by the NSA were not
“valid intelligence targets” but civilian ones, such as hospitals and
universities. He said for the first time that he didn’t know that the
reporter to whom he gave this information, Lana Lam, worked for the Hong
Kong-based South China Morning Post (although she was identified as one
of the paper’s correspondents on its website); he says he understood
she was a “freelancer” from Australia.
“So you didn’t even know that it was going to be in a newspaper in China?” Couric asked him.
“I knew it would be in a newspaper,” he said. “I didn’t know what newspaper. This was not my concern.”
Brian
Rhoads, managing editor of the South China Morning Post, said in an
email to Yahoo News Monday that the paper’s reporter, Lam, “made clear
her status and who she was working for” when she interviewed Snowden in
Hong Kong. “She was a full-time staff member of the South China Morning
Post at the time, and represented herself as full-time staff throughout
the interview process. We asked Snowden and the lawyers follow up
questions and communicated with them about dates we were planning
publication of the material.” Rhoads also emphasized that the South
China Morning Post is an independent publication that “is not controlled
by China” and does not share information with the country’s government.
Snowden,
who lives with his longtime girlfriend, Lindsay Mills, in a Moscow
apartment, and says he walks freely throughout the city unmolested and
for the most part unrecognized, was asked by Couric at one point what he
misses most about the United States.
“Family,
of course,” he replied. “That’s always the thing. You know, they can
come and see me, but you’ve got all these travel arrangements and
logistics, you’ve got to go on an airplane ride. Who doesn’t miss that?”
“When you look back at the last three years, was it worth it?” Couric asked. “Absolutely. I would do it again.”
“No regrets?”
“No regrets at all.”
“No regrets?”
“No regrets at all.”
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