GOP presidential candidate: ‘No leniency’ for Edward Snowden
US presidential candidate Jeb Bush says former CIA employee and National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden should receive “no leniency” for his leak of government surveillance programs.
In a Twitter message posted on Tuesday, Bush said “Snowden broke the law, recklessly endangered nat'l security, & fled to China/Russia. He should be given no leniency.”
The former governor of Florida has been a strong defender of the NSA surveillance programs, which Snowden leaked to journalists in 2013. Bush has also been highly critical of Snowden himself.
The Republican presidential hopeful was responding to an interview in which former US Attorney General Eric Holder suggested the “possibility exists” for the Justice Department to cut a deal with Snowden that would allow him to return to the United States from Russia.
“I certainly think there could be a basis for a resolution that everybody could ultimately be satisfied with. I think the possibility exists,” Holder told Yahoo News on Monday.
Holder said Snowden’s revelations "spurred a necessary debate" about the bulk collection of phone records and that the US was "in a different place" as a result.
A Justice Department spokesman said, however, that the department hasn't changed its position on Snowden. The government has charged the whistleblower with multiple crimes under the Espionage Act.
Snowden began leaking classified intelligence documents in June 2013, revealing the extent of the NSA’s spying activities, including the massive collections of phone records of Americans and foreign nationals as well as political leaders around the world.
Snowden’s asylum in Moscow has been a source of tension between the US and Russia, with US President Barack Obama canceling a planned meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 Summit in 2013 after Russia agreed to grant him asylum.
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