40 Putin then decided that this agent would be “welcome, provided, however, that he stops any kind of activity that could damage Russian-US relations.” Putin’s disclosure came as no surprise to the NSA investigation since the Russian pro-government newspaper Kommersant had reported that Snowden visited the Russian consulate in Hong Kong. Putin’s authorization could certainly account for Aeroflot waiving its usual passport and visa check to allow Snowden to board its plane. It also might explain the dispatch with which Russian officials whisked Snowden off the plane after it landed and into a waiting car at the Moscow airport. It could even account for Snowden’s vanishing from public view for the next three weeks and the promulgation of the cover story that Snowden was unwillingly trapped at the airport by the U.S. government. The reasons behind Putin’s move were less clear. By September 2013, the investigation was looking into a veritable abyss. Snowden’s culpability was no longer an issue. What was lacking from the video, or the 2-hour film made from it by Laura Poitras, was any specific information on how many documents he had copied, how he had obtained the passwords to the computers on which they were stored, the period of time involved in the theft, or how he had breached all the security measures of the NSA in Hawaii. Nor would that data be forthcoming from Snowden, who may be the only witness to the crime, By June 23, 2013, he was in a safe haven in Moscow. Even though the Grand Jury case against Snowden was cut and dry, it was also irrelevant because the US does not have an extradition treaty with Russia. The purpose of the intelligence investigation went far beyond determining Snowden’s guilt or innocence, however. Its job was to find out how such a massive theft of documents could occur, how the perpetrator escaped, and, perhaps most urgent, who had obtained the stolen documents from Snowden. When Snowden first met Greenwald and Poitras in Hong Kong o