Following up on his interview with the Voice of Russia earlier this week, RPI Chairman and Founder Ron Paul elaborates, in his weekly podcast with Charles Goyette, why Paul is encouraging people to sign a petition urging President Barack Obama to grant clemency for whistle-blower Edward Snowden. Paul explains:
I think this is a perfect example of how [the United States president’s power to grant clemency] should be used. Under certain circumstances, individuals who may be charged for breaking a law may have been following a higher law, like a moral law or the Constitution.
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This is a perfect time to use the principle of clemency to let him off because technically he violated the technical law but he did not violate the Constitution. He was defending the Constitution. Isn’t it amazing that, if we have a government official that lied through their teeth to us and disobeyed the Constitution, they are never penalized, but you take one individual who lives up to a promise to uphold the Constitution and tells us the truth — those are the individuals being punished. I think we need to turn that around.
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I think the majority of the American people now are saying, “What is the purpose of putting somebody like Snowden in prison?”
Listen to the 12 minutes podcast here.
Paul also advocates clemency for Snowden in a Wednesday interview on Fox Business’s The Independents. Paul explains:
…right now we have a government that claims they have total secrecy and their job is to destroy our privacy. But, in a true republic that protects liberty, we should have our privacy and government should be open.
Watch the full interview here:
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