Congressional inquiry: Snowden in contact with Russia’s spy services

WASHINGTON — Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden remains in contact with Russian intelligence services, according to a bipartisan congressional report released at a time when Russia is considered a top national security concern.

The two-year inquiry focused on Snowden’s 2013 leak of classified U.S. material about America’s surveillance programs. It concluded that Snowden compromised national security by these disclosures and is avoiding prosecution while living in a country that is considered one of the top U.S. adversaries. In recent months, U.S. intelligence agencies have been outspoken about their beliefs that Russia actively interfered in the U.S. political process by hacking into private email accounts.

The report sends a strong message to President Barack Obama during his final days in office: Do not pardon Edward Snowden.

Obama has not offered any indication that he is considering pardoning Snowden for the leaks that embarrassed the U.S. and angered allies. Lisa Monaco, Obama’s adviser on homeland security and counterterrorism, said last year that Snowden “should come home to the United States and be judged by a jury of his peers — not hide behind the cover of an authoritarian regime.”

However, there has been a push by privacy advocacy groups to pardon the former NSA contractor who they herald as a whistleblower for leaking documents that disclosed the extent of the data the U.S. collects on Americans in its efforts to fight terrorism. After the disclosures, Obama reined in some of the surveillance authorities and put in place additional measures to provide more transparency to the classified programs.

The House intelligence committee released the report to provide what the panel’s chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., called “a fuller account of Edward Snowden’s crimes and the reckless disregard he has shown for U.S. national security.”

The 33-page unclassified report pointed to statements in June 2016 by the deputy chairman of the defense and security committee in the Russian parliament’s upper house, who asserted that “Snowden did share intelligence” with the Russian government.

The report said, “Since Snowden’s arrival in Moscow, he has had, and continues to have, contact with Russian intelligence services.” The following sentence was redacted, and there is nothing in the unclassified report that explains why the committee believes Snowden is still sharing intelligence with the Russians.

The committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, said Snowden isn’t a whistleblower as he and his defenders claim. “Most of the material he stole had nothing to do with Americans’ privacy, and its compromise has been of great value to America’s adversaries and those who mean to do America harm,” Schiff said.