Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy indicated on Monday that he would use presidential pardon power if elected to “free” Edward Snowden, who faces Espionage Act charges for releasing classified information to the public.
Ramaswamy said that Snowden – a former National Security Agency federal contractor who in 2013 leaked classified records regarding many digital surveillance programs run by the U.S. and allied governments – had engaged in “acts [that were] heroic,” in comments on The Hugh Hewitt Show. Snowden, who obtained asylum in Russia and became a Russian citizen in 2022, faces up to 10 years in prison for each of the charges filed against him. (RELATED: Vivek Ramaswamy Vows To Repeal Espionage Act)
“[T]here’s a certain heroism in it at the same time — is that he took a risk that he didn’t have to take in order to actually expose to the public what the public did not already know,” Ramaswamy told Hewitt.
I will pardon Julian Assange without apology & I’m aiming to visit him in his prison exile later this year: just like so many peaceful J6 protestors & countless other Americans, his prosecution was fundamentally unjust. Chelsea Manning, the government employee who actually… pic.twitter.com/Mm1laSurEQ
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) June 9, 2023
Ramaswamy also praised Julian Assange, the Australian-born founder of WikiLeaks, a website that published government secrets obtained from various sources, whom he has said he would pardon. Assange gained notoriety after WikiLeaks published over 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables, many of them classified, supplied by former U.S. Army Specialist Bradley Manning, who has since become a transgender woman and is now known as “Chelsea Manning.”
Ramaswamy said that Assange was “a member of a disfavored political class at the time,” preventing him from receiving a pardon or commutation. He compared Assange to Manning, who received a commutation from President Barack Obama in 2017.
The 2024 presidential candidate also likened Snowden’s willingness to “take a risk” and drive “progress” to Rosa Parks, the civil rights figure, who was arrested after refusing to give up her racially-segregated seat on a bus in Birmingham, Alabama in 1955 — though he denied he was comparing the substance of their actions.
“It was progress of very different kinds, but yes, did Edward Snowden contribute to us making progress in delivering accountability to a part of the national security establishment that wasn’t previously held accountable? Absolutely,” Ramaswamy said.
Snowden remains a U.S. citizen and, because he is a natural-born American, cannot be stripped of that status.
Snowden and Assange are not the only people whom Ramaswamy has pledged to pardon if elected president. He also said that he would pardon former President Donald Trump, who was indicted by a federal grand jury in Miami on June 8 for possessing classified documents at his private residence, with the charges also stemming from the Espionage Act.
Trump, by contrast, has previously suggested Snowden should receive the death penalty.
Ramaswamy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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