Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has renewed his pledge to pardon suspected US spy and anti-surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden if elected.
Kennedy’s heir filed a petition On Monday, he called for a pardon for Snowden, who now lives in Russia, while praising him for exposing the country’s secret government surveillance operations.
“Edward Snowden is an American hero,” President Kennedy, 70, said in a video. “Instead of putting Snowden in jail, I’m going to erect a statue of him. [WikiLeaks] Julian Assange was somewhere near the Washington Press Club, or perhaps outside the CIA headquarters in Langley, as a civics lesson for the Republic.
“Mr. Snowden, who has been in exile for more than a decade, reveals that our government spied on millions of law-abiding Americans, in violation of numerous laws and fundamental rights to privacy. In doing so, he performed an important public service,” President Kennedy said. He said.
“The America I love does not punish whistleblowers. Truth-tellers who defend free speech and seek to return America to its democratic and humane ideals should be respected and prosecuted.” We shouldn’t,” the candidate said.
President Kennedy’s video message addresses Snowden’s persecution by featuring a compilation of former Presidents George W. Bush, President Barack Obama, and former President Donald Trump criticizing the alleged traitor. emphasized his point.
Snowden, 40, released a series of top secret documents. guardianThe Washington Post and several other news organizations reported in 2013 that highlighted numerous surveillance programs by the NSA and allied organizations.
This information dump featured a large collection of people’s metadata – information about when and to whom their phone calls and electronic messages were sent.
Snowden eventually fled to Russia, where he was granted asylum and currently resides.he Wanted on charges of spying for the United States The same goes for theft of government goods.
President Kennedy has long criticized the upper echelons of the U.S. intelligence community.
He has previously claimed that he believes the CIA was involved in the murder of his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, and has even raised the possibility that the spy agency was involved in the murder of his namesake father, a former U.S. attorney general. I let it happen.
Critics have accused RFK Jr. of trafficking in conspiracy theories about the intelligence community and other issues.
The candidate has vowed to rein in U.S. intelligence agencies if elected, and has previously targeted both Snowden and Assange, who was charged with espionage by the U.S. for releasing damning classified documents involving U.S. military personnel. He promised to pardon her.
President Kennedy vowed in January that he would “teach the American people a civics lesson by pardoning Julian Assange and Edward Snowden on my first day in office.”
“You can hold me to this,” he later declared of X.
Mr. Trump, 77, once told Mr. Snowden, “should be executed,” seriously Considered deploying a veto pen In the end of his administration, when he pardoned someone who claimed to be a whistleblower, he resigned, but ultimately did not.
