SNOWDEN CALLS RUSSIAN-SPY STORY “ABSURD”
JANUARY 21, 2014
POSTED BY JANE MAYER
Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor turned whistleblower, strongly denies allegations made by members of Congress that he was acting as a spy, perhaps for a foreign power, when he took hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. government documents. Speaking from Moscow, where he is a fugitive from American justice, Snowden told The New Yorker, This Russian spy push is absurd.
On NBCs Meet The Press, Mike Rogers, a Republican congressman from Michigan who is the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, described Snowden as a thief, who we believe had some help. The shows host, David Gregory, interjected, You think the Russians helped Ed Snowden? Rogers replied that he believed it was neither coincidence nor a gee-whiz luck event that he ended up in Moscow under the handling of the F.S.B.
Snowden, in a rare interview that he conducted by encrypted means from Moscow, denied the allegations outright, stressing that he clearly and unambiguously acted alone, with no assistance from anyone, much less a government. He added, It wont stick
. Because its clearly false, and the American people are smarter than politicians think they are.
If he was a Russian spy, Snowden asked, Why Hong Kong? And why, then, was he stuck in the airport forever when he reached Moscow? (He spent forty days in the transit zone of Sheremetyevo International Airport.) Spies get treated better than that.
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http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2014/01/snowden-calls-russian-spy-story-absurd.html