Whistleblower Edward Snowden is drawing attention for his reaction to FBI Director James Comey's decision not to recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton for her use of private email servers.
Shortly after Comey announced the decision on Tuesday, Snowden, who is in exile in Russia for leaking NSA documents, posted a simple emoji on Twitter.
The tweet follows a more pointed comment he posted in early June.
The development has rekindled interest in Clinton's stance on Snowden. In 2013 the presidential hopeful said Snowden was a "traitor" who had "blood on his hands,"
The Daily Caller noted.
"I can never condone what he did," Clinton said.
Comey called Clinton "extremely careless" in regard to her handling of classified information but also said she lacked criminal intent.
Conor Friedersdorf,
writing for The Los Angeles Times, criticized the disparity in Clinton's "political insider treatment" compared to the likes of Snowden.
"Compare her motives to those of whistle-blowers such as Thomas Drake, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, who broke rules governing classified information in order to expose government wrongdoing. The 'context' for their rule-breaking was a post-9/11 national security environment in which state agencies engaged in numerous instances of unconstitutional behavior, from torture to mass spying on innocents. Yet they all faced or face decades in prison," Friedersdorf wrote. "Only a longstanding member of the establishment like Comey could believe that Clinton's selfish, careerist intent was more excusable, if not more elevated, than Drake, Manning and Snowden’s selfless and self-endangering behavior."
Twitter users shared mixed reactions to Snowden's sentiments.
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