Mike Rogers: Russia may be behind Edward Snowden leak

Edward Snowden may have collaborated with Russia, Mike Rogers, the chairman of the US House Intelligence Committee, has alleged.

“I believe there’s a reason he ended up in the hands, the loving arms, of an agent in Moscow,” Rep Mike Rogers told CBS’s Face the Nation program.

Mike Rogers offered no firm evidence to back his theory, and the FBI is said to remain sure Edward Snowden acted alone.

The former NSA contractor has been granted temporary asylum in Russia.

Edward Snowden faces espionage charges over his actions, but denies turning over documents to any foreign government.

Mike Rogers – a Republican who represents Michigan – told NBC that some of the things Edward Snowden did were “beyond his technical capabilities”.

It appeared “he had some help and he stole things that had nothing to do with privacy”, such as large amounts of data on the US military, Mike Rogers alleged.

And it would cost the US “billions and billions” to put right its capabilities following the intelligence breaches, he said.

“I don’t think it was a gee-whiz luck event that he ended up in Moscow under the handling of the FSB,” he added, referring to the Russian state security organization.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Californian Democrat who heads the Senate intelligence committee, told the same program Edward Snowden “may well have” had help from Russia, but “we don’t know at this stage”.

Last week, the latest leaks to emerge via Edward Snowden suggested that the US had been collecting and storing almost 200 million text messages every day across the globe, according to the UK’s Guardian newspaper and Channel 4 News.