138 After establishing some part of Snowden’s “material” was still in his possession, Shevardnadze asked the next logical question: “Why did Russia get involved in this whole thing if it got nothing out of?” In response, Kucherena elliptically hinted that the unreleased material contained CIA secret files. “Snowden spent quite a few years working for the CIA.” He said. "We haven’t fully realized yet the importance of his revelations.” (He was correct that Snowden had stolen a larger number of CIA documents that he had not turned over to journalists, as CIA deputy director Morell confirmed.) Whatever this material might reveal, the FSB was presumably aware of its existence. After all, Kucherena was on the FSB’s public oversight board. If he had kept Snowden’s possessions of these documents secret from the FSB, he would not have divulged it in an interview on television. Kucherena’s answer left little ambiguity to the critical question about the fate of the NSA’s missing documents: Snowden had not destroyed the electronic files of NSA documents that he had not distributed to journalists. He still had them, when Kucherena had reviewed his files in Russia. Kucherena’s disclosure that Snowden retained these crucial documents did not contradict Snowden’s own story at the time of the Shevardnadze interview. Indeed, it was completely consistent with the statement Snowden made three weeks after arriving in Russia in his previously- mentioned email to Senator Humphrey. Snowden subsequently changed his story. In mid-October, Snowden electronically-informed journalists that he had destroyed all the NSA documents in his possession before flying to Moscow. So his new story radically contradicted what his own lawyer had said the previous month on television. To be sure, Kucherena who later confirmed the accuracy of the Shevardnadze interview to me in Moscow in 2015 may have meant to say that Snowden only had access to the NSA documents rather than having the physical files