Twelve years after facilitating the largest national security leak in American history, Edward Snowden remains exiled in Russia, unable to set foot on U.S. soil without losing his freedom.

A bipartisan consensus denouncing Snowden as a criminal traitor quickly formed in Washington, D.C., following the revelation of his identity in 2013: "I don't think Mr. Snowden was a patriot," President Barack Obama said at a press conference. Hillary Clinton dismissed him as "a lawbreaker," House Speaker John Boehner called him a "traitor," Rep. Mike Pompeo (R–Kan.)—later CIA director—called for his execution.

The U.S. government was illegally surveilling its own citizens, and because of decisions made by Congress and the Bush and Obama administrations after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, America was on track to become an Orwellian police state.

This hasn't happened yet thanks in large part to Edward Snowden, who deserves not only a presidential pardon, but a hero's welcome home.

In 2013, Donald Trump shared the D.C. establishment view of Snowden, calling him a "spy who should be executed." In 2015, while campaigning for president, Trump said, "I think he's a total traitor, and I would deal with him harshly." By the end of his first term, however, Trump had changed his mind.

"Many people think [Snowden] should somehow be treated differently, and other people think he did very bad things, and I'm going to take a very good look at it," Trump told a reporter who asked him about a potential Snowden pardon in August 2020.

After Trump lost reelection to Joe Biden, journalist Glenn Greenwald says he "engaged in a huge amount of effort" with Trump's transition team about pardoning Snowden, and that, at one point, Trump was convinced to go through with it.

"I think he liked the idea, the kind of flair of it, and wanted to do it," says Greenwald.

Greenwald says anti-Snowden partisans like Pompeo talked Trump out of it, and that Trump may have worried that such a move would spur congressional Republicans to vote to convict him in his impeachment proceedings.

But now, Trump has less to lose by angering the GOP establishment than he did in 2021.