Epstein Secrets

hared all of it with the Russians, and they are very grateful.” This assessment was backed by Frants Klintsevich. As the first deputy chairman of the Kremlin’s defense and security committee at the time of Snowden’s defection, he was | | Epst_9780451494566_2p_all_r1.z.indd 166 @ 9/29/16 5:51 Pa | | HOUSE

tries in the world from, as he put it, “secret pervasive surveillance.” That higher duty transcended any narrower legal definitions of law- breaking. Ben Wizner, a lawyer from the American Civil Liberties Union who has represented Snowden since October 2013, argues that Snowden’s taking of classified document

T_019753 266 | HOW AMERICA LOST ITS SECRETS Alexander Litvinenko, I had interviewed Andrei Lugovoy. A former KGB officer assigned to protecting the Kremlin’s top members in the 1990s, Lugovoy later opened his own security company. In 2005, he became a business associate of Litvinenko’s in gathering infor

source, including Micah Lee, the Berkeley-based technology operative for the Freedom of the Press Foundation; Jacob Appelbaum, the Tor proselytizer; Ben Wizner, the ACLU lawyer; Barton Gellman; and Glenn Greenwald. “It is not me that can’t keep a secret,” Abraham Lincoln joked. “It’s the people I | | Epst_9

n with the FSB and other Russian agencies. At the outset, Kucherena made it clear to Snowden that he would have to play by Moscow’s tules before the Kremlin would grant him permission to stay in Russia. To begin with, Snowden had to withdraw any and application he had made elsewhere for asylum. He had to

r asked Kucherena in Moscow why Snowden changed his story in direct contradiction of what Kucherena had stated, he said “Wizner.” He was referring to Ben Wizner, a top-drawer ACLU lawyer based in Washington D.C. Wizner had joined the ACLU in August 2001 after graduating NYU law school and clerking for a Feder

ander Litvinenko in London, I had interviewed a number of people in Moscow, including Andrei Lugovoy. A former KGB officer assigned to protecting the Kremlin’s top members in the 1990s, Lugovoy later opened his own security company. In 2005, he became a business associate of Litvinenko’s in gathering infor

mile. “It’s my first novel.” When I asked if he could arrange for me to see Snowden, he said that first I would have to first submit my questions to Ben Wizner, Snowden’s American lawyer. He made it clear to me that the exposure of Snowden to journalists, or at least the vetting of journalists, had been outs