Trump: 'A lot of people' think Edward Snowden 'not being treated fairly' | Hacker News Reader

Trump: 'A lot of people' think Edward Snowden 'not being treated fairly'

nypost.com

78 pointsdsr1273 comments

That sounds suspiciously like he's considering pardoning Snowden.

Also... going from calling for Snowden's execution to potentially pardoning him is one hell of a 180.

I would love him to do so. We really need another wake up call in this country that the government routinely lies to us and that trusting our officials requires them proving they can be trusted.

Remember, Snowden has been out of this country since May of 2013 and the last Administration did not pardon him but instead did pardon Manning whose actions were more reckless. It really comes down to the fact Snowden really stepped on the toes of some big time political players who are not used to being called out.

> last Administration did not pardon him but instead did pardon Manning

Manning was NOT pardoned. Her sentence was commuted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelsea_manning#Commutation

Manning stood to face her her crimes like a long line of revered civil disobedients before her. Snowden ran away into the arms of a hostile foreign power. That has just as much to do with pissing off the government as what either of them revealed.

The laws that would out Snowden and Manning in prison for life are unjust and there's nothing wrong with what either of them did. I don't blame Snowden for leaving a country full of idiots calling for his death

Please don't take HN threads further into nationalistic flamewar. Your comment would be fine without the swipe at the end.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

And Manning stuck around to fight those laws on the frontline with great personal risk and sacrifice. Snowden fled to avoid having to make the type of commitment that Manning had made.

I think Snowden is a hero.

Sadly, this feels more like Trump’s perverse “everything Obama did was bad so I’ll do the opposite” logic, instead of acknowledging that Edward Snowden made a difficult choice to protect our republic.

Trump's tweet, referenced at the end of the article, suggests that the decision on whether to execute or support Snowden depends on whether the revelations are politically useful to Trump's campaign:

> In a 2013 tweet, Trump wrote: “Snowden is a spy who should be executed-but if it and he could reveal Obama’s records, I might become a major fan.”

I still hope there is a pardon in the works though.

Doing 180 requires some direction, principle or policy.

Trump's just says something random to get into news or test of it would make him more popular.

https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2016/06/04/it-ought-to-be-com...

> That sounds suspiciously like he's considering pardoning Snowden.

It sounds suspiciously like he's doing the “say provocative but noncommittal things referencing subjects of controversy as a distraction from other controversies over concrete policies” thing he does, on average, on more than a daily basis.

Meanwhile, the plot to cancel public voting in the Presidential election and substitute legislature-selected electors in sufficient Republican-governed swing states to guarantee Trump reelection has already passed the “provide a public pretext” stage with Trump’s handpicked leadership at USPS, after dismantling capacity to produce widely publicized mailing delays, following up by notifying states that the Postal Service’s “delivery standards” do not support completing delivery and return of ballots on the timelines required for mailing voting (with the first part of the pretext provided by the pandemics impact on safety and public confidence in in-person voting), leaving only the obvious legislative action as a remaining step.

> Also... going from calling for Snowden's execution to potentially pardoning him is one hell of a 180.

The President always had the potential to pardon anyone for actual, charged, or potential and uncharged federal crimes. There's no transition, much less a 180, to “potential”.

Perhaps he expects the Russians will execute him if he's pardoned. Wouldn't surprise me given their track record.

Trump's an asshole, and if he pardons Snowden, he'll be less of an asshole than Obama was for NOT pardoning him.

I voted for Obama twice, and the fact that he didn't pardon him told me everything I need to know about him being full of shit and made me regret ever supporting him.

FYI: I worked at Booz Allen when Snowden went public. I can't talk about any details, but basically I upended my life, left DC, and went pure private sector as a direct result of his revelations. I still don't make what I made then, and I don't care. If not for him, I would have still been working on stuff that was undermining the US constitution. All my coworkers were acting like he was Satan, and how he made Booz Allen look bad, and blah blah blah. My favorite moment was asking my coworker, who was defending the spying, if she would give me her email password. You can guess the response.

... Now, THEREFORE, I, DONALD JOHN TRUMP , President of the United States, pursuant to the pardon power conferred upon me by Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, have granted and by these presents do grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Edward Joseph Snowden for all offenses against the United States which he, Edward Joseph Snowden, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from March 1, 2007 through August 14, 2020. ...

If that were to happen I can imagine at least some people who were for his pardon in ‘14 would denounce the pardon if it came to be.

We definitely saw that with TPP. It was something the EFF, Bernie, and Clinton (tepidly) were against. The withdraw is used to bludgeon the administration for not creating a counter trade force to China.

Did the EFF, Bernie, or Clinton criticize Trump for withdrawing, and was the criticism only for the withdrawal, or for how it was handled? (Honest questions - I'm not familiar).

EFF, who I do follow, has not criticized the withdraw.

I don't know enough about Bernie or Clinton to know where they stand on the issue. Clinton's de-endorsement was probably not genuine so I'd bet she has criticisms of the withdraw.

My main point is that an issue that was popular on the left (enough for Clinton to flip-flop on) seems to now be mostly the voices of the left criticizing the withdraw.

There might be some bias there because people who did support withdraw might be less incentivized to vocalize support for policy that landed in their favor.

Changing your mind or evolving your opinion is just "flip-flopping"?

There was enough written about this specific issue to suggest it might be political opportunism. Of course it's also not fair to not let people actually change their mind.

https://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/hillary-clinton-trade...

Maybe flip-flopping is too loaded of a word and I shouldn't have used it.

Respectfully, there are a couple examples of loaded-ness in your original comment.

>> Clinton's de-endorsement was probably not genuine

From the article you linked, this is what she said "Although Clinton had traveled the world in support of TPP as President Barack Obama’s secretary of state, she told the “PBS Newshour” that the final agreement didn’t meet the “high bar” she set for the pact."

Sounds like she still liked the idea, but the agreement wasnt to her liking.

>>My main point is that an issue that was popular on the left (enough for Clinton to flip-flop on) seems to now be mostly the voices of the left criticizing the withdraw.

Again, if more info came out and people changed their mind, you seem to be villifying it and declaring it a "left" problem. (which it may be, but you're asserting with an anecdote on what you've noticed)

In the immortal words of John F Kerry, “I did actually vote for it before I voted against it”

Of course, given any absurd position, you can find somebody who holds it, so the implication of targeting one such position would be that, unlike the others, its representation is non-negligible. I disagree in this example - this seems like the invention of specifically irrational people for the purpose of mocking whatever broader group you perceive them to be a part of. However, what you would certainly find are people not just discussing Trump's hypocrisy/inconsistency, which is a valid opinion, but also people overly focusing on it to the overshadowing of Snowden's freedom.

If he does do it I think it potentially puts Biden in a tough spot. Biden would have to denounce it (since he was part of the team that wanted him), but that’s contra what lots of libertarians and some leftists would favor vis a vis exposure of government overreach into citizens’s private data.

It would be deft but also political, but then again what politician doesn’t make political moves, including interventionist wars?

I'd welcome it, even at the hands of Trump. It's as valid. And I'd give Trump credit for it, whether he did it of sound mind or not. Facts are facts.

Trump should pardon Snowden because it's the right thing to do.

He should also not be undercutting the post office, assassinating Iranian generals, enforcing tariffs on allies like Canada and Europe.

Pardoning Snowden is a meaningless gesture, it does nothing to stop the military industrial complex and the intelligence apparatus that he supports

If a European country lets a hostile country like Russia earn trillions by running pipelines through their country, are they really that much of an ally? Tarrifs make perfect sense in response to actions like that

Trump has continually let Russia do as it pleases, he kowtowed in Syria to Putin, he kowtowed by threatening to constantly defund NATO, he kowtowed in Crimea.

The facts are just too obvious. Trump is pro-Russia, he's done nothing but allow it to expand and influence US elections, too.

How is asking for fair proportional funding of european defense something we should be responsible for?

I understand we benefit from that too, but why should we carry the burden more than the direct beneficiaries?

The US benefits more from its forward bases in Europe than the European countries do. This isn't 1976. Russia isn't a direct military threat at this point in time.

In south east asia the argument can be seen differently - but even so, the US protects SK, Japan, Taiwan, and Australia to keep open the South China Sea. If that benefit disappeared the US wouldn't be as vigorous in its defense.

The reason presidents prior kept NATO together was because it is an extremely strong alliance that can protect each other's economic interests. If the US loses NATO now, they are simply no longer hegemon.

You got it backwards. The second Air Force in the world is the US Navy. The US Navy has 8 nuclear lead aircraft carrier groups. AFAIK, neither Russia nor China have nuclear aircraft carriers.

I think the US would be fine without NATO. The US projection would be mostly undamaged. Not so much the rest of the allies. It's the rest of the NATO that benefits from that projection (e.g. Somali pirates missions).

BTW I very much do NOT want NATO to disband. I think it's a great alliance. But let's be realistic. The US pays for alsmost 1/4 of the NATO direct spending, and 2/3 of the indirect spending:

https://www.factcheck.org/2018/07/trump-still-distorting-nat...

That’s all good but what’s wrong with fair proportionate funding? It’s not like the EU doesn’t benefit the same we do.

The only one I disagree with is cutting funding to USPS. Europe and Canada (nor anyone not specially exempted) should not enjoy advantage in trade. People were beside themselves over rumors of Russian snipers, this guy was directly responsible for troop deaths and much more instability in the ME. We’ve just seen peace agreements begin to bear fruit in the ME —would that have been possible with that guy stirring up hornets’s nests?

The US has countless examples of covert operations that de-stabilised nations and killed other soldiers. Perhaps a cruise missile should be aimed at one of our generals, I'm sure you'd support that.

> We’ve just seen peace agreements begin to bear fruit in the ME —would that have been possible with that guy stirring hornets’s nests?

Syria is still a cluster, Palestine is more oppressed than ever, endless war in Yemen, slave labor in Qatar for the world cup. Kurds abandoned and slaughtered by Turkey. Iran has major instability issues, Pakistan and India have had a major skirmish (granted, not the ME, but it's close enough.)

> this guy was directly responsible for troop deaths and much more instability in the ME.

Should Trump then assassinate Bush and Obama?

No, only external adversaries would entertain such pointless notion. Just like Duterte might in his dreams think of sinking Chinese ships, in reality he’d dig his own grave if he did.

Intelligence services used to be unassailable. They did the dirty work for the country (and admittedly it’s a necessary thing in an unfair world), but a couple of major problems are: they are often wrong in very bad ways: Russian missile crisis, power of the late USSR where Reagan has to seek advice from DoD instead, gulf war II and then the internal and political spying (remember they were caught spying on congress?)

I'm generally distrustful of intelligence agencies because they are literally designed to carry out underhanded and deceptive operations. If you go back and read old WWII and Cold War declassified documents you can clearly see a lot of "ends justify the means" operations. I've never understood why we hold these agencies in such high regard. I guess because they're supposed to be on 'our side'?

Unfortunately one can’t unilaterally be “the nice guy” and hope everyone else will decide, “yeah, let’s all be nice guys”. It doesn’t happen. So everyone who wants a more level playing field for themselves has to engage.

Lots of movies showing how great these secret spy agencies are and all the cool stuff they do has really helped shaped the public's image

I've read recently a discussion on the Roman Praetorian guard. The gist seemed to be that Roman Emperors were largely at their whim -- sometimes they would decide to kill the emperor for no good reason. Any kind of rogue unchecked power is a disaster waiting to happen (because they can yield their power in self-interest or in various irresponsible ways).

See here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praetorian_Guard#Severan_dynas...

They went as far as auctioning the emperor title at one time!

Well, he's right. Maybe this is Snowden's chance, I wonder if he'll file another plea for immunity. Clearly Trump's election strategy should be to paint the Democrats as pawns of the deep state whereas he is not, and freeing Snowden would play well with that narrative.

A member of Congress (Thomas Massie - U.S. Rep KY) tweeted that Trump should pardon Snowden this morning as well: https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/12942523311319040...

Why is this flagged?

Possibly for including Trump's go-to 'a lot of people'?

Dear President Trump: Please

1. Pardon Snowden 2. Commission a statue of him, perhaps to replace Columbus on a plinth somewhere 3. Award him the Medal of Freedom 4. Appoint him as the Director of the National Security Agency

In return I'll vote for you. Such a deal.

>In a 2013 tweet, Trump wrote: “Snowden is a spy who should be executed-but if it and he could reveal Obama’s records, I might become a major fan.”

good god, that's one of the most Trumpish Trump tweets ever.

He's the same guy who endorsed the use of hydroxychloroquine as Covid-19 treatment by falsely claiming that it was safe and the FDA had approved it, and at least one person died after following his advice, so no surprise at all. He says what at the moment brings more approval without any care of the consequences.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tarahaelle/2020/03/23/man-dead-...

ps. to 45' fanboys: a nice side effect of facts is that they don't disappear along with the posts reporting them, so happy clicketyclicking; I've plenty of karma to burn and too much grey matter to give a damn about it.

I don't think drinking fish tank cleaner constitutes following his advice.

Not directly for sure, and as another HNer wrote there's some Darwin involved. I didn't know there had been an investigation for possible murder, so thanks to all HNers who pointed it out. It seems however from the latest articles I could find that the murder suspicion has been dismissed and the man death ruled as an accident. What however is strange is that the couple worked both at John Deere, and the man was an engineer with a high degree of education, which doesn't seem that compatible with the level of stupidity needed to drink a fish tank cleaner.

Unrelated, but looking around i found that the two once sued their employer for sex and age discrimination against the wife. https://www.leagle.com/decision/infdco20140721507

More Darwinism at work than anything, but there was also some suspicion she murdered him.

I can't shake this feeling that, just like the lies we were told about masks in order to stop the public from gobbling them all up, like they did with toilet paper, we're being lied to the same way with HCQ in order to protect the supply for the non-peasant classes. On one side there is a shrill loud voice saying it's foolish to take it, it's less than useless, etc, and on the other side there are multiple studies showing it is/was useful if used in a particular way. I have little Karma to burn but do as you will.

I found a US patent that suggests HCQ can repair DNA damage from ionizing and non ionizing radiation. My hunch tells me that the government stockpiles it in case of an infrastructure attack uses cell towers to make people sick.

Pretty good reason to keep a stockpile of it.

https://patents.google.com/patent/US20050014785A1/en

Hydroxychloroquine is safe.

https://www.cdc.gov/malaria/resources/pdf/fsp/drugs/Hydroxyc...

> at least one person died after following his advice

Correction: at least one democrat donor murdered her husband and used that advice as an excuse [1].

[1] https://nypost.com/2020/04/29/homicide-cops-investigate-deat...

"The Art of Deal"

source?

https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/39568370275766272...

The article, which links to the tweet.

Anyway: https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/39568370275766272...

It's the final line in the article

Is this article only three short paragraphs long, or is something not being displayed somewhere?

I see about 10-12 paragraph indents, although short, so it might be an issue on your end. NYPost does have an intense number of ads so perhaps a blocker issue?

Can someone explain why the GOP wants this? Isn't Snowden a disaster for them?

In no particular order.

1) Trump is very much not of fan of the sorts of shadowy warrant-less surveillance that snowed exposed (because he feels it was used against him) so this could be a dig at that apparatus.

2) Obama didn't pardon him despite doing so being far more popular on the left than right (at least up until present, no telling what will happen going forward) and this could force Biden in a tricky situation especially with the current public opinion situation

3) Snowden is controversial on the right (the anti-government crowd loves him) so this might be a move to strengthen his appearance among the fraction of the party who are alarmed by his authoritarian tendencies (cue joke about an NY Democrat in Republican's clothing).

4) His advisors who are paid to think about this stuff 40+hr a week have thought of something I haven't.

> because he feels it was used against him

It's seeming like this is quickly turning from a "he feels it was used against him" into an unequivocal "it was used against him".

I've seen more than enough evidence through the reports and proceedings on FISA abuse ala Carter Page and Peter Strzok that I'm convinced it was definitely used against him, during and after the election.

Why now?

Presidents usually start thinking about pardons at the end of their term. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_pardons_in_the_United_...

Well, if you start to think that there is something seriously wrong with State and the CIA, and they hate Snowden then you might want to consider that maybe you should look at the whole thing differently. Plus, he has some Republicans telling him to pardon Snowden.

That, and enough time has passed with Snowden in exile that it still carries the message the Intelligence Community wanted sent - ie. don't do this!

So, bringing him back to the US and pardoning him with "time served in exile", might be sufficient to make it more acceptable to a broader audience versus a 2014 pardon.

Has anyone discovered a pattern in what Trump likes and dislikes yet?

expediency

Trump is about to catch a lot of heat for messing with the USPS. This is him trying to put out something controversial so that the lame media will bite on that instead.

Also, Trump projects. Like, a lot. So I wonder if this might be telling in that respect as well.

Edit: I'm going to double down. Trump is setting things up so that he can say the election is corrupt due to China and our spy agencies are not to be believed when they say "nope", thus tying up the election in courts as long as possible. I think he believes that come Jan 20, if no President is officially declared, that he'll just stay President. Or at least he and Barr believe they can challenge that.

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