Independent presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has re-upped his dedication to pardon US accused spy and anti-surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden if elected.
The Kennedy scion rolled out a petition Monday calling for the pardon of Snowden — whereas hailing the now-Russian resident for exposing extremely categorized home authorities surveillance operations.
“Edward Snowden is an American hero,” Kennedy, 70, stated in a video. “As an alternative of jailing Snowden, I’m going to construct a statue to him and perhaps to [WikiLeaks] Julian Assange someplace close to the Washington Press Membership or maybe exterior the CIA headquarters in Langley as a civics lesson to the Republic.
“Snowden, who has been in exile for greater than a decade, carried out a vital public service by revealing that our authorities had been spying on hundreds of thousands of law-abiding Americans, in violation of quite a few legal guidelines and our elementary proper to privateness,” Kennedy stated.
“The America I like doesn’t punish whistleblowers. Reality-tellers who champion free speech and attempt to return America to its democratic and humanitarian beliefs needs to be revered, not prosecuted,” the candidate stated.
Kennedy’s video message drove residence his level about Snowden’s persecution by that includes a compilation of former Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump criticizing the alleged traitor.
Snowden, 40, funneled a tranche of extremely confidential paperwork to the Guardian, the Washington Publish and several other different retailers in 2013, shedding mild on a litany of surveillance packages by the NSA in addition to Allied organizations.
The knowledge dump featured the rampant assortment of individuals’s metadata — details about when and to whom a cellphone name or piece of email was despatched.
In the end, Snowden fled to Russia, the place he was granted asylum and at present resides. He’s wanted on US charges of espionage in addition to theft of presidency materials.
Kennedy has lengthy railed in opposition to the highest brass of the US intelligence neighborhood.
He beforehand claimed he believes that the CIA was concerned within the homicide of his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, and even floated the chance that the spy company performed a task within the killing of his eponymous father, the previous US lawyer basic.
Critics have accused RFK Jr. of trafficking in conspiracy theories concerning the intelligence neighborhood and on different points as properly.
The candidate has vowed to rein within the US intelligence neighborhood if elected and beforehand dedicated to pardoning each Snowden and Assange, who has been charged with espionage by the US for publishing damning categorized paperwork, together with these involving the American army.
“I’m going to present a civics lesson to the American public by pardoning Julian Assange and Edward Snowden my first day in workplace,” Kennedy pledged in January.
“You may maintain me to this,” he later affirmed on X.
Trump, 77, who as soon as instructed that Snowden “should be executed,” critically considered deploying his veto pen for the self-described whistleblower throughout a late administration clemency kick however finally declined.
