Trump to Face Opposition From CIA if Attempts to Pardon Snowden - Ex-CIA Agent

BELGRADE (Sputnik), Viktorija Mladenovic – It would be a problem for US President-elect Donald Trump to pardon whistleblower Edward Snowden due to the strong opposition to such a move from Trump’s own pick to run the CIA, Kansas congressman Mike Pompeo, former CIA analyst Raymond McGovern told Sputnik.

"…It [pardoning Snowden] would be a big problem for Trump because his CIA guy and the other people who look narrowly at this thing, the same people who are violating our constitution, they would be very much against it, so… pardoning Snowden would be really hard for him to do," McGovern said.

In 2014, Pompeo accused Snowden of "intentional distortion of truth that he and his media enablers have engaged in."

In November, a campaign to allow Snowden to return to the United States without severe punishment was given a boost, with former high-ranking intelligence experts calling on US President Barack Obama to show leniency. On November 18, Obama said that he could not pardon Snowden as he had not gone before court.

Former US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Snowden has been living in Russia — where he has been granted asylum — since 2013, after leaking thousands of sensitive documents to journalists, revealing previously unknown widespread surveillance practices of US government intelligence agencies.