Eric Holder: Edward Snowden Might Return to USA

The possibility exists that NSA leaker Edward Snowden could make a deal with the Justice Department to return to the United States, ex- Attorney General Eric Holder told Yahoo News.

Asked by Isikoff whether Snowden might be able to get a plea bargain, Holder replied, “I certainly think there could be a basis for a resolution that everybody could ultimately be satisfied with”. I think the possibility exists, ” former USA Attorney General Eric Holder told Yahoo News in an interview.

Holder has admitted that Snowden’s “actions spurred a necessary debate” on surveillance of USA citizens. But Holder’s previous comments, in January 2014, made clear that “the notion of clemency was not something we were willing to consider”.

“We don’t believe that a felony conviction and accompanying loss of civil rights would be the appropriate consequences of Snowden’s actions”, Wizner said by email.

Yahoo News also claims three other sources confirmed “informal discussions” involving the second General Counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Robert Litt, centred around offering Snowden a return – if he pleads guilty to a felony charge with a prison sentence of three to five years – something to which Snowden is unlikely to concede. His tenure was criticized for enthusiastic prosecutions of government leakers such as Snowden.

In the interview, Holder declined to detail what a deal with Snowden might look like.

When Edward Snowden fled the U.S.in 2013 after exposing the NSA’s spying program, there were many who doubted that the ex- Central Intelligence Agency worker would ever set foot in the country again. While en route to Ecuador, where he was promised political asylum, Snowden was stranded at the Moscow airport, after Ecuador received USA pressure to rescind the offer.

The US Freedom Act was passed in June, in effect putting an end to the bulk collection of telephone data in the United States.

Of the many politicians vying for president, only Democratic candidate Lincoln Chafee, the ex- governor of Rhode Island, has explicitly said it is time to allow Snowden to return to the USA Republican Sen.