Sen. Rand Paul: ‘President Trump Should Pardon Edward Snowden’

Dec. 18, 2020 (EIRNS)—Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) published an article in The Federalist yesterday with the above title, urging just that action from his friend, President Donald Trump.

Senator Paul praised President Trump for having “done more on foreign policy and civil liberties than has any recent president,” driving

“the Deep State and the War Caucus” into a frenzy in the process. “Lovers of liberty have President Trump to thank for his foreign policy and opposition to Patriot Act renewal—but there is one more important symbolic step he needs to take now. He should pardon Edward Snowden for revealing the unconstitutional spying that was going on, even beyond what was envisioned from the Patriot Act,”

he proposed.

It is important to remember that Snowden himself said that he made his decision to “leak information about unconstitutional spying ... after watching Obama’s Director of National Intelligence James Clapper lie about it under oath,” Paul reminded. That’s the same Clapper, the Senator wrote, who lied to Congress multiple times and participated in “many unconstitutional endeavors, including spying on Americans and participating in the Russia Hoax.... He and others like him in the Deep State abused power and shredded the Constitution. And Snowden exposed them....

“Barack Obama tried to imprison Snowden for being a ‘traitor’; Joe Biden—an ally of the Deep State and self-proclaimed author of parts of the Patriot Act—would continue the wrongful prosecution.

“But Snowden is no traitor. He is a true whistleblower who was trying to expose those like Clapper who used Deep State powers in secret to go after Americans. Snowden should be pardoned. And this president, who distinguished himself as an opponent of the Deep State on issues of war and spying on Americans, should be the one to do it,”

he concluded.