Snowden claims his secret files never entered Russia

If Edward Snowden thinks there’s a chance that he could be caught by the US government, he could face even more serious charges for bringing files into Russia than the ones he currently faces. For this reason, it’s hard to know whether or not he’s sincere in his claims that the NSA files never made it into Russia.

Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, said in an extensive interview this month that he did not take any secret N.S.A. documents with him to Russia when he fled there in June, assuring that Russian intelligence officials could not get access to them.

Mr. Snowden said he gave all of the classified documents he had obtained to journalists he met in Hong Kong, before flying to Moscow, and did not keep any copies for himself. He did not take the files to Russia “because it wouldn’t serve the public interest,” he said.