President Trump is embracing the pardon power, cleaning the slates of campaign advisers caught up in the Russia “collusion” investigation as well as Charles Kushner (his son-in-law’s father) and others. Trump is reportedly considering more, and some of his vocal boosters, including Sen. Rand Paul, Rep. Matt Gaetz, and newly elected Republican populist Marjorie Taylor Greene, are publicly pushing Trump to grant one of those pardons to Edward Snowden. The former National Security Agency contractor stole 1.5 million classified documents in 2013 before fleeing to China and then Russia, where he lives today.

Snowden has become a hero for an ideologically diverse fusion of influential political observers. In addition to some populists and libertarians, he boasts the support of the ACLU and enjoys a sympathetic audience with leftist politicians such as Sen. Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and certain left-wing media favorites. Just a few weeks ago on MSNBC, Snowden was opining to the public about how to respond properly to disinformation in one breath while downplaying the significance of foreign nations’ interference in American elections in the next and castigating the U.S. government for “illegally” spying on Americans and “everyone else around the world” in another.