The White House and two key lawmakers rejected clemency for Edward Snowden, who said the documents he leaked were leading to U.S. surveillance-program reforms.
“He was a contractor. He was trusted. He stripped our system,” Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., told the CBS program “Face the Nation” when asked if she believed Snowden had made a case for a pardon.
“He had an opportunity — if what he was was a whistle-blower — to pick up the phone, to call the House Intelligence Committee, the Senate Intelligence Committee, and say, ‘Look, I have some information you ought to see,'” Feinstein said.
“And we would certainly see him — maybe both together, maybe separately — but we would have seen him and we would have looked at that information,” she told the program.
“That didn’t happen,” Feinstein said. “And now he’s done this enormous disservice to our country. And I think the answer is no clemency.”
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., was equally adamant when asked the same question on the program.
“I don’t see any reason [to grant clemency],” he said.
