Editors note: I voted for Donald Trump - twice - mostly because I saw him as a disruptive actor toward a horrably distructive national security state. He had the opportunity to pardon Edward Snowden and Julian Assange and did not do so. His cowardice in this matter is why he failed in so many others. He's not as smart as he thinks he is, while he has some common sense he has no principles and most of his administration reflected this lack of coherent principles and a fundamental lack of understanding of the Law. His cowardice is why his own people stabbed him in the back and why he should go back to his mediocre business dealings and stop pretending he has any idea how to address our nation's issues. As George S. Patton is reputed to have said, "I'll not have cowards in my army." Neither should we in our government.
The video that follows is why most of these Rinos in Congress should be primaried. Mike Nixson
from full transcript from Glenn Greenwald on substack
... beyond my public advocacy, I also engaged in extensive efforts privately to do everything possible to secure a pardon for each of them[Snowden and Assange]. I did not hide that I was doing this: I was candid at the time that I was trying. But because those efforts involved private conversations with people close to or inside of the Trump circle, I did not talk about them because doing so would have undermined those efforts, and I did not want to do anything that might have jeopardized the campaign to secure their freedom. Now that Trump is publicly speaking about his decision, I decided it was time to share what I know about Trump’s decision-making process as a result of my involvement in that private campaign. On Tuesday, we published a 30-minute video report on Rumble to examine the answers. I do know some of the story, but not all of it, so the video report we produced bears the humble and cautious title: "The Semi-Inside Story of Why Trump Refused to Pardon Snowden and Assange.” I tried hard to avoid speculation and instead confine myself to what I actually know.