Is Eddie da Vole really Eddie da Mole?
Intelligence chair: NSA leaker Edward Snowden may have had Russian help
• Rogers: Snowden 'a thief whom we believe had some help'
• Feinstein adds voice to criticism of Obama NSA speech
Russia may have helped the former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden to reveal details of surveillance programmes and escape US authorities last year, the chairman of the House intelligence committee claimed on Sunday.
Mike Rogers, a Republican representative from Michigan, interviewed by NBC’s Meet the Press, said Snowden was “a thief whom we believe had some help”, and added that there was an “ongoing” investigation into whether Russia had aided Snowden.
“I believe there's questions to be answered there,” Rogers said. “I don't think it was a gee-whiz luck event that he ended up in Moscow under the handling of the [Russian intelligence service] FSB.”
Rogers added: “Let me just say this. I believe there’s a reason he ended up in the hands, the loving arms, of an FSB agent in Moscow. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
“We have questions that we have to answer but as someone who used to do investigations some of [the] things we are finding we would call clues that certainly would indicate to me that he had some help and he stole things that had nothing to do with privacy,” said Rogers.
The Democratic chair of the Senate intelligence committee, Dianne Feinstein, a staunch defender of the NSA’s programmes, also spoke to Meet the Press. She said Snowden had joined the NSA “with the intent to take as much material down as he possibly could”.
Asked if he was aided by the Russians, Feinstein said: “He may well have. We don’t know at this stage. But I think to glorify this act is to set a new level of dishonour.”
theguardian.com  |
