Snowden Will Stay Put; Obama Still Lying

PRESIDENT OBAMA INDICATED on Friday that he won’t pardon NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

  The Intercept

Oh, gee, what a surprise.

President-elect Donald Trump announced his pick to run the CIA: Kansas congressman Mike Pompeo, who has called for “the traitor Edward Snowden” to be executed.

Good excuse for Russia to grant an extension on asylum. And maybe, who knows, maybe some other country will offer asylum with an interim passport.

“What’s needed is a fundamental upgrade to America’s surveillance capabilities,” reads a Wall Street Journal piece Pompeo co-wrote in January

[...]

He has also defended CIA torturers, saying that “these men and women are not torturers,” and that “the programs being used were within the law.” He called the exhaustive, 6,000 page Senate Torture report “some liberal game being played by the ACLU and Senator Feinstein.”

[...]

Pompeo has also accused Islamic faith leaders of being “potentially complicit” in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

Looks like Trump aims to put the worst of the worst in his administration.

In an interview with Obama published on Friday, German newspaper Der Spiegel asked: “Are you going to pardon Edward Snowden?” Obama replied: “I can’t pardon somebody who hasn’t gone before a court and presented themselves, so that’s not something that I would comment on at this point.”

Except that's just not true.

Presidential pardons can be granted anytime after an offense has been committed including before, during, or after a conviction for the offense. If granted before a conviction is given, it prevents any penalties from attaching to the person. If granted after a conviction, it removes the penalties, and restores the person to all his or her civil rights.

[...]

[T]he president has unlimited pardon power, except in cases of impeachment. This means the president can pardon as many individuals as he or she wants for any federal criminal acts against the United States, unless that individual has been impeached by Congress.

  LegalFlip.com

In 1866, the Supreme Court ruled in Ex parte Garland that the pardon power "extends to every offence known to the law, and may be exercised at any time after its commission, either before legal proceedings are taken, or during their pendency, or after conviction and judgment." [...] Generally speaking, once an act has been committed, the president can issue a pardon at any time—regardless of whether charges have even been filed.
  Slate

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.