Investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald explained in a video posted to his social media this week why then-President Donald did not pardon Julian Assange or Edward Snowden.
Assange was charged in 2019 for violating The Espionage Act by conspiring with spy Chelsea Manning. Snowden leaked top-secret documents to expose the NSA spying on Americans.
Recently, Candace Owens interviewed Donald Trump and asked him why he didn’t pardon them.
“You have two sides of it,” Trump said.
“In one case, you have sort of a spy deal going on, and in another case, you have somebody that’s exposing real corruption. I feel a little bit — I won’t say which one — but I feel a little bit more strongly about one than the other,” Trump added.
“I could have done it, but — I will say, you have people on both sides of that issue — good people on both sides. And you have bad people on one side,” he continued.
“But I decided to let that one ride, let the courts work it out. And I guess the courts are actually doing that.”
“But at the same time, in many cases, what they did — these were the same people that came after me so viciously and dishonestly.”’
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“I could have gone — I was very close to going the other way,” Trump added.
In his video, Greenwald, a founder of the investigative site The Intercept, explained that based on his information, Trump elected not to pardon either man because he was threatened with being convicted during his second impeachment trial by Republicans.
Greenwald explained:
“But this is what was going on inside the Republican caucus in December, though they really had no leverage, which is why he was getting closer and closer to pardoning Edward Snowden. And that’s when. As you see here from U.S. News on January 12, six days after the Jan. 6th riot, “the headline on the eve of impeachment, some Republicans jumped ship as Trump sinks. Three Republicans so far have announced their support for impeaching President Donald Trump as the party considers a post-Trump era.”
“They were making very clear to him explicitly clear Republican senators like Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio and Mitch McConnell that if you do any of those things that you are considering doing, pardoning Assange and Snowden, declassifying JFK files, declassifying other secrets that should have been declassified long ago because they’re from decades-old treachery on the part of the US government, we will vote to impeach you. They had this leverage the sword of Damocles hanging over his head, and I am not saying this to justify Trump’s cowardly refusal to do what he should have done in pardoning Edward Snowden, then Julian Assange. Candace Owens was right in that video that he should have and that if she were in his position, she would have.”
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