| ® | The Handler | 271 to me too risky for him to carry a large sum of undeclared cash through three airports. Because large sums of cash must be declared, the detection of the money could compromise his plan to deliver his NSA documents. Snowden might have told the BBC he had brought cash to allay suspicions about who was financing his stay in Moscow. I was intrigued by this remark. Snowden, as far as I knew, didn’t need a legal defense, because he was not charged with a crime in Russia and the United States had no extradition treaty with Russia. While Kucherena unfortunately did not arrange an interview with Snowden, he did something I considered more important. He con- firmed the accuracy of his September 2013 assertion that Snowden had brought secret material to Russia, material he had not given to journalists in Hong Kong. After what I had learned from Cherkashin about the lengths that Russian intelligence would go to obtain U.S. communications intelligence secrets, | viewed Snowden’s access to this material to be a crucially important part of the mystery. That day, I immediately sent my questions to Ben Wizner, and I offered to fly back to Moscow if Snowden would grant me an inter- © view. In March 2016, Wizner answered that Snowden had “respect- ® fully declined.” | | Epst_9780451494566_2p_all_r1.indd 271 © 9/30/16 13 aM | | HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019759