| ® | The Keys to the Kingdom Are Missing | 179 want to risk bringing them to Russia. He expanded on this claim in three more interviews. These interviews were all with three jour- nalists who had opposed NSA surveillance: James Bamford, writing for Wired magazine; Alan Rusbridger, the editor of The Guardian; and Katrina vanden Heuvel, the editor of The Nation. He also gave a televised interview to Brian Williams of NBC News in which he explained that because he had no access to the NSA documents in Russia, he could not provide access to the Russians even if they “break my fingers.” Snowden did not specify where, when, or how the putative destruction of the files occurred and offered neither witnesses nor evidence, other than the meaningless blank laptop screen, to cor- roborate it. Still his new self-serving narrative was widely accepted by the media. The fact remains, though, that Snowden went to con- siderable risk to select, copy, and steal Level 3 documents before leaving Hawaii for Hong Kong. These secrets were his last potential bargaining chips. Why would he have destroyed them in June in Hong Kong? © It is also difficult for me to accept that Snowden would destroy ® these documents because he feared the Russians might get them. If he was so concerned about the possibility, he could have stayed in Hong Kong and fought extradition instead of flying to Russia. Surely he must have realized that even without the files on his com- puter, the Russian intelligence service could still obtain the NSA secrets he held in his head. Indeed, as he told the Times, the secrets he held in his head would have devastating consequences for NSA Operations. In light of Kucherena’s statement that in Russia Snowden had access to NSA documents, it would require a serious suspension of disbelief to accept Snowden’s new narrative. Even if one were will- ing to accept his new claim, it still would not mean that the NSA documents had not fallen into the hands of adversaries. If he had d