- US President Donald Trump has said he will consider a possible amnesty for Edward Snowden.
- Edward Snowden made “devastatingly public” about the blockchain.
US President Donald Trump said he would consider a possible amnesty for Edward Snowden, who left the US in 2013 and took refuge in Russia, Reuters reported on August 15. If Trump grants a presidential pardon, Edward Snowden may return to the United States.
Many commenting on Trump’s statement after the press conference stated that they thought Snowden was “not treated fairly”.
Responding to one of these comments , Snowden said on Twitter:
“The last time I heard the White House was considering forgiving me was in 2016, when the same attorney general who accused me once acknowledged that my efforts to expose the unconstitutional mass surveillance system of the NSA (National Security Agency) were somehow ‘public service’.”
Under article 2 of the US Constitution, a president has the power to punish and pardon “crimes against the United States”. Snowden still faces federal charges for violating the Espionage Act of 1917 and theft of government property.
If the US president applies for this authority, he will be the 26th person he has pardoned since taking office.
Snowden is outspoken about crypto
Since the exile in Russia, Snowden has frequently expressed his views on Bitcoin (BTC), even voicing his concerns over the blockchain as “devastatingly public”.
It was alleged that Snowden used Bitcoin to pay servers he used to leak thousands of documents to journalists in 2013. Snowden also said that he wanted to buy Bitcoin during the March crisis, when Bitcoin’s price dropped to $ 3,782.
In 2019, Snowden hinted that the US government might resort to crypto to circumvent an attempt to restrict his access to profits from the publication of his book ‘Permanent Record’. On August 7, a US Magistrate decided to impose sanctions on Snowden over the sale of the book, stating that he had “clearly acted in bad faith.”
