Why Venezuela wants Edward Snowden

Giving Snowden asylum would shield him from espionage charges in the U.S. What would Venezuela get out of it?

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro
(Image credit: Korotayev Artyom/ITAR-TASS Photo/Corbis)

A Russian lawmaker said Tuesday that NSA leaker Edward Snowden had accepted an offer of political asylum from Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Neither the Venezuelan government nor Snowden immediately confirmed the claim — in fact, the lawmaker quickly deleted a tweet in which he announced it.

But if true, such an exile deal could be Snowden's ticket out of the Moscow airport, where he has been holed up for two weeks evading espionage charges in the U.S. The question is, what would be in it for Venezuela?

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.