Snowden: Obama should pardon me

Whistleblower Edward Snowden thinks President Obama should pardon him, saying he has benefited U.S. citizens. 

{mosads}Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor, leaked tens of thousands of government documents in 2013 and faces at least 30 years in jail for violating the Espionage Act. 

“Yes, there are laws on the books that say one thing but that is perhaps why the pardon power exists — for the exceptions, for the things that may seem unlawful in letters on a page but when we look at them morally, when we look at them ethically, when we look at the results, it seems these were necessary things, these were vital things,” Snowden said in an interview with The Guardian.

“I think when people look at the calculations of benefit, it is clear that in the wake of 2013 the laws of our nation changed. The [U.S.] Congress, the courts and the president all changed their policies as a result of these disclosures. At the same time there has never been any public evidence that any individual came to harm as a result.” 

Snowden now lives in Moscow, where he has been granted temporary asylum. 

But he said he’s confident he will end up back in the U.S. 

“Once the officials, who felt like they had to protect the programs, their positions, their careers, have left government and we start looking at things from a more historical perspective, it will be pretty clear that this war on whistleblowers does not serve the interests of the United States, rather it harms them.”

The interview comes ahead of Friday’s release of the Oliver Stone biopic “Snowden.”