Besides, we have his word, and two (or three) witnesses who saw him destroy the content of the SD card.
Diplomatic relations are handled by China's foreign ministry. There is no way Snowden's status would not be handled by the Chinese government.
Who is trying to muddle the point with irrelevant detail? It won't fly here!!
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Also, I'm glad there were witnesses of some SD card being destroyed. Good thing we can trust the word of someone who at that point has already stolen deep operational intelligence in the first place (we're not even talking about information on mass domestic intelligence - just typical intelligence data), that this was the only copy he held or wasn't already compromised. A person who then fled to Russia by way of China. Unbelievable.
Or is it that I just refuse to take his unsubstantiated claims at face value, and that makes me a conspiracy nut?
The guy is the definition of a traitor to his country.
Don't be dense. Those other agents didn't make off with 1.7 million highly classified files, flee to China and then arrange a defection to Russia with Russian officials.
>I don't know why it makes any sense to assume that Snowden is leaking any more than what he gave to the journalists.
Because he has stolen much much more than he gave to the journalists and the stolen data was much more extensive than domestic surveillance programs.
>America is keeping him out because they will not guarantee him a trial that meets his criteria of fairness/openness.
I'm sorry the law doesn't meet his criteria.