Advertisement
Tech

Liz Cheney says Snowden put troops at risk, gets reminded who her dad is

Cheney’s tweet about Edward Snowden struck a nerve for a lot of people.

Photo of Andrew Wyrich

Andrew Wyrich

Liz Cheney Edward Snowden

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wy.) made her views abundantly clear about a potential pardon for Edward Snowden on Sunday night, and her assertion that he put “our troops and our nation at risk” is causing a lot of people to remind her of who her father is.

Featured Video

Over the weekend, President Donald Trump said he was going to “take a very good look at” pardoning Snowden, the former NSA contractor who leaked classified documents about the sprawling surveillance apparatus in the U.S.

Trump’s comments echoed ones from late last week, where he told the New York Post “there are a lot of people that think he is not being treated fairly.”

The president’s most recent remarks are starkly different than one’s he held against Snowden in the past, where he called him a “terrible threat” and a “traitor” in 2013.

Advertisement

But it appears that Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, isn’t a fan of a potential pardon of the whistleblower, and shares some of the same feelings Trump had seven years ago.

“Edward Snowden is a traitor. He is responsible for the largest and most damaging release of classified info in US history. He handed over US secrets to Russian and Chinese intelligence putting our troops and our nation at risk,” Cheney tweeted on Sunday night. “Pardoning him would be unconscionable.”

Liz Cheney Edward Snowden Tweet
@Liz_Cheney/Twitter

But Cheney’s remarks about “putting our troops and our nation at risk” struck a nerve for a lot of people online. (This isn’t the first time Cheney’s views on policy have been mocked given her family ties.)

Advertisement

Cheney’s father, while vice president, was part of an administration that pushed the U.S. into the war in Iraq, which was built on the false narrative that then-president Saddam Hussein had “weapons of mass destruction.”

The disastrous two-decades-long Iraq War led to thousands of U.S. troops dying.

People were quick to point that out in response to Cheney’s tweet about Snowden.

Advertisement
https://twitter.com/Spazzlez1/status/1295345019700879360
https://twitter.com/Hasan_JF/status/1295131317948973056
https://twitter.com/youmissat/status/1295209887811567617
Advertisement

Even Snowden himself noticed Cheney’s tweet.

“twitter: the museum of the confidently incorrect,” he tweeted on Monday morning.

Edward Snowden Response Liz Cheney Tweet
@snowden/Twitter
Advertisement

Read more of the Daily Dot’s tech and politics coverage

Nevada’s GOP secretary of state candidate follows QAnon, neo-Nazi accounts on Gab, Telegram
Court filing in Bored Apes lawsuit revives claims founders built NFT empire on Nazi ideology
EXCLUSIVE: ‘Say hi to the Donald for us’: Florida police briefed armed right-wing group before they went to Jan. 6 protest
Inside the Proud Boys’ ties to ghost gun sales
‘Judas’: Gab users are furious its founder handed over data to the FBI without a subpoena
EXCLUSIVE: Anti-vax dating site that let people advertise ‘mRNA FREE’ semen left all its user data exposed
Sign up to receive the Daily Dot’s Internet Insider newsletter for urgent news from the frontline of online.
 
The Daily Dot