Edward Snowden is surprised he's still in Russia and blames the State Department for him being there. The NSA leaker said so in a clip from his interview with Brian Williams that aired on Wednesday's Today. <\/p>\n
\"The reality is I never intended to end up in Russia,\" Snowden explained. \"I had a flight booked to Cuba onward to Latin America, and I was stopped because the United States government decided to revoke my passport and trap me in Moscow Airport. So when people ask 'Why are you in Russia?' I say, 'Please ask the State Department.' \" <\/p>\n
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Secretary of State John Kerry hit back at Snowden's comments in a live interview on the Wednesday edition of the NBC morning show, saying Snowden can return to the U.S. whenever he wants. <\/p>\n
\"For a supposedly smart guy, that's a pretty dumb answer, frankly,\" Kerry said. \"If Mr. Snowden wants to come back to the United States today, we'll have him on a flight today. We'd be delighted for him to come back. He should come back. That's what a patriot would do. A patriot would not run away and look for refuge in Russia or Cuba or some other country. A patriot would stand up in the United States and make his case to the American people. He can come home, but he's a fugitive from justice, which is why he is not being permitted to fly around the world.\" <\/p>\n
Kerry added that Snowden should trust the U.S. justice system and says the NSA leaker \"stole\" information and did \"great damage\" to the United States. <\/p>\n
\"But to be hiding in Russia, an authoritarian country, and to have just admitted he was really just trying to get to Cuba -- what does that tell you?\" Kerry said. \"I think he's confused. I think it's very sad.\" <\/p>\n
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Later Wednesday night when the full interview aired on NBC News, Snowden told Williams that he was \"trained as a spy.\" <\/p>\n
\"I was trained as a spy in sort of the traditional sense of the word, in that I lived and worked undercover overseas -- pretending to work in a job that I'm not -- and even being assigned a name that was not mine,\" Snowden said in his first with a U.S. television network. <\/p>\n
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