The politician believes Manning and Snowden are heroes

Aug 23, 2013 10:06 GMT  ·  By
WikiLeaks, Snowden and Manning were among the topics discussed by Ron Paul with Larry King
   WikiLeaks, Snowden and Manning were among the topics discussed by Ron Paul with Larry King

In an interview given to the famous Larry King, politician Ron Paul took another step in defending Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden and even WikiLeaks.

Speaking to King, Paul advocated for an end of the surveillance programs and the release of WikiLeaks source Manning, who was just sentenced to 35 years in prison.

During the interview, Paul compared Manning and Snowden with Daniel Ellsberg, a man who disclosed the Pentagon Papers which pointed to the fact t,hat the US government lied about the true cause of the Vietnam War.

“I think highly of them. I think of them like Daniel Ellsberg, who they tried to put away for a long time and they tried The New York Times for releasing the truth of how the Vietnam War started and how we were lied into that war,” he said.

“The people now telling us the truth about what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan should be seen more as heroes. A guy like Snowden knows exactly what he was up to and he knows the danger of it. I sincerely believe, although I’ve never met him, that he believed he was doing a service to the people by doing this. We shouldn’t be calling people like this traitors,” Paul concluded.

Talking about WikiLeaks, the politician believes the organization did as much as possible to make sure no one was hurt following the publication of the 700,000 documents.

“I want as much government transparency as possible and think WikiLeaks has worked very hard to make sure no one has been hurt, and there’s no evidence anyone has, but if our government is doing something wrong and they’re hiding it from us I think there is a moral obligation of those who know it and can reveal that to us to let us know,” Ron Paul stated.