Inquiry: Snowden in contact with Rusian intelligence

WASHINGTON -- Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden remains in contact with Russian intelligence services, according to a bipartisan congressional report released at a time when Russia is considered a top national-security concern.

The two-year inquiry focused on Snowden's 2013 leak of classified U.S. material about America's surveillance programs. It concluded Snowden compromised national security by these disclosures and is avoiding prosecution while living in a country considered one of the top U.S. adversaries.

In recent months, U.S. intelligence agencies have been outspoken about their beliefs Russia actively interfered in the U.S. political process by hacking into private email accounts.

The report sends a strong message to President Barack Obama during his final days in office: Do not pardon Edward Snowden.

Obama has not offered any indication he is considering pardoning Snowden for the leaks that embarrassed the U.S. and angered allies.

Lisa Monaco, Obama's adviser on homeland security and counterterrorism, said last year Snowden "should come home to the United States and be judged by a jury of his peers -- not hide behind the cover of an authoritarian regime."

Privacy-advocacy groups, however, have pushed for a pardon of the former NSA contractor they herald as a whistleblower for leaking documents that disclosed the extent of the data the U.S. collects on Americans in its efforts to fight terrorism.

The House intelligence committee released the report to provide what the panel's chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., called "a fuller account of Edward Snowden's crimes and the reckless disregard he has shown for U.S. national security."

The 33-page unclassified report pointed to statements in June 2016 by the deputy chairman of the defense and security committee in the Russian parliament's upper house, who asserted "Snowden did share intelligence" with the Russian government.