Classified document-leaker Edward Snowden isn’t a Trump fan, but he also believes it’s unlikely that the president colluded during the 2016 campaign with Russia — because he isn’t that sophisticated.
The former National Security Administration contractor, now living in exile in Moscow, told the Intercept that “people are asking for too much when they hope that the Mueller investigation is going to come up with kind of a smoking gun and say, ’Yes! Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, in the hotel room with the [explictive] tape!’”
“You know that’s not how the world works; life is not that simple,” Mr. Snowden said in the interview published Friday.
Mr. Trump has called the exile a “spy” and a “total traitor” who should be tried for stealing and leaking classified documents on government surveillance in 2013, while Mr. Snowden’s supporters have portrayed him as a hero.
In the interview, Mr. Snowden, who faces federal charges in the United States, said he doubted the president was clever enough to have engineered such a scheme.
“And to be honest, everyone who has heard Trump speak for three minutes knows he’s a wrecking ball,” Mr. Snowden said. “This does not sound like the kind of person that you would want to engage in some kind of complicated Manchurian Candidate, when, you know, the guy can’t even remember what he was going to say at the end of a sentence.”
Special counsel Robert Mueller has been investigating since May 2017 whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russian or other foreign governments during the 2016 race.
Mr. Snowden added, “But that doesn’t mean that he didn’t want to cooperate, that doesn’t mean that he wouldn’t do anything to achieve an advantage,” he said. “I just think we just need to be realistic about what an investigation can possibly find.”
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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