#Trump ‘very strongly’ looking at pardoning whistleblower Edward Snowden

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President Donald Trump and whistleblower Edward Snowden
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A presidential pardon is not out of the question for the country’s most famous whistleblower.

President Trump on Saturday said he was going to look “very strongly” at the possibility of a pardon for Edward Snowden. He told The Post exclusively earlier this week that he was open to the idea.

“I’m not that aware of the Snowden situation. I’m going to start looking at it. There are many many people, it seems to be a split decision,” Trump said Saturday during a news briefing at his Bedminster club in New Jersey.

“Many people think that he should be somehow treated differently and other people think he did very bad things,” the president went on.

“I’m going to take a look at that very strongly.”

Snowden is accused of theft of government property and espionage and has been living in Russia after leaking troves of National Security Agency information on the highly secretive agency’s mass surveillance and other intelligence programs.

A pardon would be quite the change of heart for Trump, who tweeted critically of Snowden at least 45 times before he took office, calling him a “traitor” who should be executed.

“Snowden is a traitor and a disgrace,” Trump tweeted back in May 2014. “Make no mistake, he is no hero. In fact he is a coward who should come back & face justice.”

But Trump today said he’s heard others around him express sympathy for his situation.

“There are a lot of people that think that he is not being treated fairly. I mean, I hear that,” Trump told The Post in an Oval Office interview on Thursday.