HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019735.jpg

A Single Point of Failure | 247

the U.S. exercise, including deliberately "trapping" him in Moscow, was to "demonize" him. "There was no question that I was going to be subject to a demonization campaign." Snowden said in Moscow, "They [Greenwald and Poitras] actually recorded me on camera saying this before I revealed my identity." Snowden asserted this "demonization" was to divert attention from the government's own crimes. By providing Snowden with this platform to rail against the putative machinations of the United States, Putin laid claim to the moral high ground.

Snowden's motive in requesting documents from other foreign intelligence services, such as the GCHQ, and copying lists of NSA sources remains unexplained. It is difficult to believe that his motive was whistle-blowing, because these documents were not among those he gave to journalists in Hong Kong. Indeed, he did not provide the journalists with the lists of sources that were particularly relevant to the NSA's surveillance of Russia. His legal representative in Moscow, Kucherena, confirmed that Snowden had taken secret "material" to Russia and had access to NSA documents that he had not given to journalists. Those unrevealed documents would be prized by many an adversary service. Did he use those documents as leverage in his transformation? The role that Moscow might have played in Snowden's defection clearly requires a closer examination of the machinations that brought Snowden to Russia. That is why I visited Moscow in October 2015.

Epst_9780451494566_2p_all_r1.indd 247
9/30/16 8:13 AM
HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019735