Russia may return Snowden as gift to Trump. Good move or bad?

[aldiboronti]

Russia Considers Returning Snowden to U.S. to ‘Curry Favor’ With Trump: Official

U.S. intelligence has collected information that Russia is considering turning over Edward Snowden as a “gift” to President Donald Trump — who has called the NSA leaker a “spy” and a “traitor” who deserves to be executed.

That’s according to a senior U.S. official who has analyzed a series of highly sensitive intelligence reports detailing Russian deliberations and who says a Snowden handover is one of various ploys to “curry favor” with Trump. A second source in the intelligence community confirms the intelligence about the Russian conversations and notes it has been gathered since the inauguration.

The Official is typical journalistic oversell, this seems to be just the usual scuttlebutt but if there is anything to it would it be a good thing to happen or not? I think Snowden did the public a huge favor by taking the actions that he did so I’m against this although eventually I think its inevitable that Russia will hand him over to the US or at the very least force him to find asylum elsewhere.

[Evan_Drake]

That’s the same US Intelligence that supported Hillary in the election ( CIA branch ) and Trump ( FBI branch ) ? Their credibility was already in the gutter.

However, apart from the facts of this affair, this would send Putin’s credibility to the same place. No-one would ever trust him, nor seek sanctuary from power — rendition to America’s torturers will be the final outcome of any dispute: the world will become infinitely more dangerous when there is no place at all for anyone to run.

[Sage_Rat]

I don’t think that it would be a smart move for Putin. He should be aware that there’s already a lot of suspicion about his and Trump’s relationship, and this sort of trade, this soon into the Trump presidency, is probably a bit too much. And beyond that, there’s no real need for him to throw anything our way. He seems to have something on Trump large enough to turn him from “I will protect the Ukraine!” to “Well, the US isn’t innocent either!” in a matter of 48 hours. And beyond that, he wants to keep Trump in place. He would have to worry about what Trump might try to have done to Snowden, torture, execution, etc. and the manic rage that Trump would go through in finding himself prevented from being able to do those things to Snowden, by the law, the Left, many on the Right, etc. which rage would have the potential to take Trump one step closer to getting impeached.

Though, granted, Fundamentalism is more destructive to the state - it set back the Middle East by several centuries - so potentially he could try to take out Trump with the aim of putting in Pence and then dumping money into the Bible Belt and pro-Christian fake news, to replace the country’s intellectual elite with religious loons and demagogues.

Obviously, the latter would take longer. But Putin’s not all that old. He’s got decades to move his pieces.

Certainly, if true, and if Russia goes ahead with it, the safe money would be that it works to Russia’s favor, not ours.

[TheSeaOtter]

@Sage_Rat

I don’t think that it would be a smart move for Putin. He should be aware that there’s already a lot of suspicion about his and Trump’s relationship, and this sort of trade, this soon into the Trump presidency, is probably a bit too much. And beyond that, there’s no real need for him to throw anything our way. He seems to have something on Trump large enough to turn him from “I will protect the Ukraine!” to “Well, the US isn’t innocent either!” in a matter of 48 hours. And beyond that, he wants to keep Trump in place. He would have to worry about what Trump might try to have done to Snowden, torture, execution, etc. and the manic rage that Trump would go through in finding himself prevented from being able to do those things to Snowden, by the law, the Left, many on the Right, etc. which rage would have the potential to take Trump one step closer to getting impeached.

These things might actually serve Putin’s interests, though. According to the report from the CIA, NSA and FBI, his goal is to destabilize democratic governments (particularly the US) by reducing public trust in their electoral and governmental systems. Obviously, Russia can’t just come right out and say that they interfered with the US election, but if many people suspect they did that? That contributes toward that goal.

[Sage_Rat]

@TheSeaOtter

These things might actually serve Putin’s interests, though. According to the report from the CIA, NSA and FBI, his goal is to destabilize democratic governments (particularly the US) by reducing public trust in their electoral and governmental systems. Obviously, Russia can’t just come right out and say that they interfered with the US election, but if many people suspect they did that? That contributes toward that goal.

Yeah, but if he destabilizes it too much - e.g., he paints the whole Executive Branch as corrupt flunkies in the pocket of Russia - then I think that people will expect not just Trump to step down from the office, but Pence too (as he’s been backing all of the Russia moves). Either Trump or Pence is good for Putin, in the Whitehouse. If they leave, though, then it goes to (and likely stays with) Paul Ryan. Since Paul Ryan is not stupid, that is about as bad an end-result as Putin could ever dream of.