He actually offered to return to the US if they accepted that he would be given a public trial and not a military trial.
Obama’s administration rejected the idea and said that their only guarantee they would give was that they wouldn’t torture him.
Just to add my 2 cents: the list of countries that the US can’t extradite is not that long, especially when you exposed government corruption of the highest degree and you are considered a traitor.
EDIT:
Just to add my 2 cents: the list of countries that the US can’t extradite is not that long, especially when you exposed government corruption of the highest degree and you are considered a traitor.
Just to add, Snowden also indirectly exposed the US’s leverage in several countries that you would otherwise assume would not cooperate with the US in any capacity.
The fact that he ended up in Russia was because he couldn’t proceed to Ecuador which was his original planned location of asylum after leaving to Hong Kong.
There are really very few countries the US can’t realistically coerce or run a black ops mission to go after him. China didn’t want the political baggage for no gain and Iran can’t even protect its own leaders from strategic bombing.
That leaves basically Russia and its less than ideal former soviet allies.
Obama just said he wouldn’t give him a pardon, but the administration did say they would give him legal protections and thought he would get a fair trial. One thing to remember is that we typically have 3 branches of government. These days, not so much it feels like
He actually offered to return to the US if they accepted that he would be given a public trial and not a military trial.
Obama’s administration rejected the idea and said that their only guarantee they would give was that they wouldn’t torture him.
EDIT:
Just to add, Snowden also indirectly exposed the US’s leverage in several countries that you would otherwise assume would not cooperate with the US in any capacity.
The fact that he ended up in Russia was because he couldn’t proceed to Ecuador which was his original planned location of asylum after leaving to Hong Kong.
There are really very few countries the US can’t realistically coerce or run a black ops mission to go after him. China didn’t want the political baggage for no gain and Iran can’t even protect its own leaders from strategic bombing.
That leaves basically Russia and its less than ideal former soviet allies.
Obama just said he wouldn’t give him a pardon, but the administration did say they would give him legal protections and thought he would get a fair trial. One thing to remember is that we typically have 3 branches of government. These days, not so much it feels like