Epstein Secrets

feature- @ length documentary, Citizenfour, which would be commercially @ released in October 2014 and win an Academy Award for her. The next day, Ewen MacAskill, whom Poitras had not wanted Greenwald to bring to the initial meeting, joined Poitras and Green- wald in Snowden’s room. Snowden insisted that MacAs

ism, which was backed by the Internet billion- aire Pierre Omidyar. Poitras remained in Hong Kong, where she moved, along with the Guardian reporter MacAskill, to the five-star Sheraton Hong Kong Hotel & Towers, which, like the Mira hotel, was on Nathan Road in Kowloon. The Guardian paid the bill. Her next

skill, whom Poitras had not wanted Greenwald to bring to the initial meeting, joined Poitras and Green- wald in Snowden’s room. Snowden insisted that MacAskill also go through the ritual of stowing his cell phone in the minibar refrigera- tor. Not without irony, Snowden’s own phone can be seen on his bed rec

inor subterfuge: Hosenball, “NSA Contractor Hired Snowden Despite Concerns About Resume Discrepancies.” 76 “playing with fire”: Spencer Ackerman and Ewen MacAskill, “Snowden Calls @ for Whistleblower After Claims by New Pentagon Source,” Guardian, May 22, @ 2016. 76 establish a paper trail: Director of Nationa

n.” 27 “through the system”: Burrough, Ellison, and Andrews, “Snowden Saga.” CHAPTER 3 Contractor 28 “Much of what I saw”: Greenwald, Poitras, and MacAskill, “Edward Snowden.” 30 This “free pass”: Tyler Drumheller, interview with author. 30 “So the guy with whom the CIA”: Morell, Great War of Our Time,

e authorized Greenwald’s trip to Hong Kong on the condition that he take with him a Guardian staffer in whom she had confidence. He was Scottish-born Ewen MacAskill, a 61-year old veteran journalist who had been the Washington bureau chief for the Guardian. His assignment was to evaluate the mystery source in Hon

urnalists with the atmospherics of “an international spy thriller,” as Greenwald subsequently described the instructions. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020250 | MacAskill had stayed at the W Hotel when Poitras and Greenwald Poitras went to the Mira Hotel. Poitras did not want to bring along an uninvited guest to the fi

need for a face-to-face meeting with Snowden. Even after he had revealed his true identity to Poitras and Greenwald on June 2™ 2013, Guardian editor Ewen MacAskill offered him the option of remaining an unnamed source for the stories. He said, as he later told Vanity Fair. “You should remain anonymous; the stori

USE_OVERSIGHT_020392 241 CHAPTER SEVEN Crossing the Rubicon 1. “What I came to feel...” —Snowden quoted in “I, Spy: Edward Snowden in Exile,’Ewen MacAskill and Alan Rusbridger, The Guardian, July 18, 2014. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/18/-sp-edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower- interview-transc