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 / Updated By Cynthia McFadden and William Arkin 
 
 U.S. intelligence has collected information that Russia is considering turning over Edward Snowden as a "gift" to President Donald Trump — who has called the NSA leaker a "spy" and a "traitor" who deserves to be executed. 
 
 That's according to a senior U.S. official who has analyzed a series of highly sensitive intelligence reports detailing Russian deliberations and who says a Snowden handover is one of various ploys to "curry favor" with Trump. A second source in the intelligence community confirms the intelligence about the Russian conversations and notes it has been gathered since the inauguration. 
 
 American whistleblower Edward Snowden is seen on a screen as he delivers a speech during the Roskilde Festival in Roskilde, Denmark, June 28 2016. Mathias Loevgreen Bojesen / Scanpix Denmark via Reuters 
 
 Snowden's ACLU lawyer, Ben Wizner, told NBC News they are unaware of any plans that would send him back to the United States. 
 
 "Team Snowden has received no such signals and has no new reason for concern," Wizner said. 
 
 Snowden responded to NBC’s report on Twitter and said it shows that he did not work with the Russian government. 
 
 "Finally: irrefutable evidence that I never cooperated with Russian intel,” Snowden said. “No country trades away spies, as the rest would fear they're next." 
 
 Snowden's Russian lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, reacted to the report with dismay. 
 
 "There are no reasons to extradite Edward Snowden to the U.S.," Kucherena said, according to TASS, the state-owned news agency. "This is some kind of speculation coming from so-called US special service sources. I think this topic was and remains on the political plane in the U.S., but it's American special services that are puppeteering this story with sporadic information plants." 
 
 "There is not the slightest reason to raise or discuss this topic in Russia," Kucherena said. 
 
 Russia, he said, does not sell people. "The Snowden issue cannot be a bargaining chip on any level, neither political nor economic," he said, according to the news agency. 
 
 Former deputy national security adviser Juan Zarate urged the Trump administration to be cautious in accepting any Snowden offer from Russian President Vladimir Putin. 
 
 "For Russia, this would be a win-win. They've already extracted what they needed from Edward Snowden in terms of information and they've certainly used him to beat the United States over the head in terms of its surveillance and cyber activity," Zarate said. 
 
 "It would signal warmer relations and some desire for greater cooperation with the new administration, but it would also no doubt stoke controversies and cases in the U.S. around the role of surveillance, the role of the U.S. intelligence community, and the future of privacy and civil liberties in an American context. 
 
 "All of that would perhaps be music to the ears of Putin." 
 
 (Left) Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Moscow State University in Moscow, Russia on Jan. 25. (Right) President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 25. Alexey Nikolsky/Sputnik/Kremlin Pool via EPA and / Jonathan Ernst/Reuters 
 
 The White House had no comment, but the Justice Department told NBC News it would welcome the return of Snowden, who currently faces federal charges that carry a minimum of 30 years in prison. Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said talk about returning Snowden is "nonsense." 
 
 If he were returned to American soil, Snowden — a divisive figure in America who is seen by some as a hero and others as treasonous — would face an administration that has condemned him in the strongest terms. 
 
 "I think he’s a total traitor and I would deal with him harshly," Trump said in July. "And if I were president, Putin would give him over." In October 2013, Trump tweeted: "Snowden is a spy who should be executed." 
 
 CIA Director Mike Pompeo has also called for Snowden to face American justice. "I think the proper outcome would be that he would be given a death sentence," Pompeo said last February. 
 
 Related: Congress Calls Edward Snowden a Liar in New Report 
 
 Snowden was working as a contractor at a National Security Agency facility in Hawaii when he began stealing top-secret documents that he gave to journalists in 2013, exposing details of U.S. domestic surveillance programs. 
 
 After Snowden fled to Hong Kong and was charged with violating the U.S. Espionage Act, he ended up in Russia. Moscow granted him refuge and officials say his residency permit was recently extended until 2020. 
 
 Related: Snowden's Lawyer Says He Can Apply for Russian Passport in a Year 
 
 In an interview streamed on Twitter in December, Snowden said being forced to return to the U.S. would be a human-rights violation but would also put to rest to accusations that he is a Russian spy. 
 
 "A lot of people have asked me: Is there going to be some kind of deal where Trump says, 'Hey look, give this guy to me as some kind of present'? Will I be sent back to the U.S., where I’ll be facing a show trial?" Snowden said. 
 
 "Is this going to happen? I don’t know. Could it happen? Sure. Am I worried about it? Not really, because here’s the thing: I am very comfortable with the decisions that I’ve made. I know I did the right thing." 
 
 More than 1 million people signed a White House petition calling for then-President Obama to pardon Snowden. Snowden himself did not file an application and tweeted that Army leaker Chelsea Manning should get clemency ahead of him. Obama commuted Manning’s sentence but took no action on Snowden. 
 
 Snowden's Russian lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, told the state-run news agency last month that his client would like to return to the United States — with no criminal charges hanging over his head. 
 
 "We hope very much that the new U.S. president would show some weighted approach to the issue and make the one and only correct decision — to stop prosecution against Edward Snowden," Kucherena said. 
 
 Zarate said there is no way to predict if Putin will deliver Snowden — or when. 
 
 "I think this is one of those rare cases where the stakes are so high, the diplomatic implications so deep, that anything can happen," he said. 
 
 "So this could be a secret diplomatic deal made in the dead of night, or it could be a weeks-in-formation deal with lawyers on all sides," he said. 
 
 "I think at the end of the day, Moscow holds the cards here." ||||| The whistleblower took to Twitter to say that the NBC report vindicates him of spying charges because ‘no country trades away spies’ 
 
 Snowden claims report Russia may 'gift' him to Trump proves he is not a spy 
 
 Whistleblower Edward Snowden has seized on a report that Russia is considering sending him back to the US as a “gift” to Donald Trump, saying that the story vindicates him of charges that he is a spy. 
 
 “Finally: irrefutable evidence that I never cooperated with Russian intel,” he said on Twitter. “No country trades away spies, as the rest would fear they’re next.” 
 
 Edward Snowden's leave to remain in Russia extended for three years Read more 
 
 Snowden was responding to a report by NBC which stated that US intelligence had collected information that Russia wanted to hand Snowden over in order to “curry favor” with Trump, who has said that the former NSA contractor is a “traitor” and a “spy” who deserves to be executed. 
 
 The report – based on two sources in the intelligence community – said the intelligence had been gathered since Trump’s inauguration. The Guardian was unable to independently verify the report. 
 
 Snowden’s ACLU lawyer, Ben Wizner, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. However, he told NBC News he was unaware of any plan to return his client to the US. 
 
 “Team Snowden has received no such signals and has no new reason for concern,” Wizner said. 
 
 Edward Snowden (@Snowden) Finally: irrefutable evidence that I never cooperated with Russian intel. No country trades away spies, as the rest would fear they're next. https://t.co/YONqZ1gYqm 
 
 Russia granted Snowden asylum in 2013 and a three-year residency in 2014. Snowden has been living in exile in Moscow, facing charges in the US including violations of the US Espionage Act for leaking documents about secret mass surveillance programs. 
 
 Speaking at a GOP candidate debate in March 2016, Trump said of Snowden: “I said he was a spy and we should get him back. And if Russia respected our country, they would have sent him back immediately, but he was a spy. It didn’t take me a long time to figure that one out.” 
 
 The Kremlin publicly dismissed these claims. 
 
 Snowden offered a longer explanation of his feelings of vindication when he was interviewed by Katie Couric in December 2016, when rumours of a Russian handover first started circulating. 
 
 State of surveillance: privacy in Donald Trump's America – tech podcast Read more 
 
 He described the suggestion as vindication that he was“independent”. He added: “The fact that I’ve always worked on behalf of the United States and the fact that Russia doesn’t own me. In fact the Russian government may see me as a sort of liability.” 
 
 Snowden suggested that a reason why Russia might want to return him was his recent criticism of the Kremlin’s human rights record and his suggestions that its officials had hacked US security networks. 
 
 Previously Snowden has said that Moscow had “gone very far, in ways that are completely unnecessary, costly and corrosive to individual and collective rights” in monitoring citizens online. 
 
 When Couric asked if Snowden would mind being extradited, he replied: “That would obviously be something that would be a threat to my liberty and to my life. 
 
 “But what I’m saying here is you can’t have it both ways. You can’t say this guy’s a bad guy – a Russian tool or something like that – at the same time you say he’s going to be traded away.” 
 
 After reiterating his sense of vindication on Friday, Snowden posted again to Twitter: “Speak not because it is safe, but because it is right.” ||||| The Russian Foreign Ministry has slammed the “ideology of betrayal” promoted by former CIA director Michael Morell who suggested Edward Snowden be presented as the “perfect inauguration gift” from Vladimir Putin to Donald Trump. 
 
 In an op-ed published Sunday in the The Cipher Brief, Morell called on Putin to circumvent the non-extradition principle and deliver Snowden to the US. The former NSA contractor is charged with espionage and theft of government property and faces up to 30 years in prison in the US. 
 
 Read more 
 
 “Noon on January 20th provides an excellent opportunity for Russian President Vladimir Putin to give President-Elect Donald Trump the perfect inauguration gift – Edward Snowden,” Morell wrote. “I'm well aware that Russia does not have an extradition treaty with the US, but I am confident that President Putin is creative enough to find a way within his own legal system to deport Snowden.” 
 
 The former CIA chief argued that it is in Putin’s interest to expel the US’s most wanted, as it would help Trump to “overlook Moscow's anti-democratic activities at home and destabilizing activities abroad.” 
 
 He also reasons that such extradition would be a “poke… in the eye of [Putin's] adversary Barack Obama.” 
 
 Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, responded sharply, saying that Russia does not betray its principles and does not hand out “gifts”. 
 
 “But seriously, the essence of what the [former] CIA [chief] is proposing, is the ideology of betrayal,” Zakharova wrote. “It is clear that, for the CIA-man's firm, it is normal to present people as gifts and give up those who seek protection.” 
 
 “You failed to understand Russia, Michael Morell,” Zakharova stated implying that Russia among its many principles, does not surrender those who might be unfairly prosecuted in another country. 
 
 Read more 
 
 Snowden, 33, disclosed mass surveillance programs used by the US intelligence services in 2013. He was then granted an asylum in Russia for one year, which was later extended to three years. Snowden's asylum was due to expire in 2017, but Zakharova confirmed that his asylum renewal has been secured. 
 
 With that said, Zakharova mocked the fact that the “former deputy head of the CIA… doesn't know that Snowden has had the deadline for a residence permit in Russia extended for a couple more years.” 
 
 The spokeswoman also noted that this was not the first time that Morell has made “misanthropic, inhumane statements.” 
 
 She remembered one of Morell’s interviews in August 2016, in which he claimed the United States should make Iranian and Russian soldiers “pay a price” for their involvement in the Syrian conflict. He called on the US to arm local groups and instruct them to kill Iranian and Russian personnel in the country. 
 
 READ MORE: ‘Kill Russians and Iranians, threaten Assad,’ says ex-CIA chief backing Clinton 
 
 Just before Zakharova issued her statement, Snowden’s lawyer Anatoly Kucherena called Morell’s suggestion to extradite his client to the US an “utter nonsense.” 
 
 “These statements coming from the former CIA head are stirring mixed feelings and can be seen only as a kind of utter nonsense, there is hardly any other way to put it,” Kucherena told RIA Novosti. ||||| MOSCOW (Reuters) - U.S. fugitive Edward Snowden will publish no more leaks but instead look to build a life in Russia where he has been granted a year-long asylum, his lawyer said on Thursday. 
 
 Fugitive former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden's new refugee documents granted by Russia is seen during a news conference in Moscow August 1, 2013. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov 
 
 Anatoly Kucherena, a Russian lawyer who is assisting Snowden, said the 30-year-old has found shelter in a private home of American expatriates after leaving Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport following more than five weeks in limbo there. 
 
 A pledge not to publish more information that could harm the United States was the condition under which Russian President Vladimir Putin said the American could receive safe harbor. 
 
 But Snowden’s promise does not extend to the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy group to which he has already handed over much of his material, Kucherena said. He has also said that Snowden does not believe his earlier leaks had done harm to his homeland. 
 
 It is likely to do little to appease the White House, which wants Snowden sent home to face trial for leaking details of secret government surveillance programs and which has signaled President Barack Obama may boycott a summit with Putin over the case. 
 
 “Edward assured me that he is not planning to publish any documents that blacken the American government,” Kucherena said. 
 
 “But before that he said... when he was in Hong Kong he gave a part of that material to journalists, so that material, of course, he can’t take back.” 
 
 Kucherena, who sits on two high-profile Russia government advisory bodies, said the former U.S. National Security Agency contractor wants to rent a flat and find work in Russia, and has no immediate plans to leave. 
 
 “Snowden is an expert, a very high-level expert and I am receiving letters from companies and citizens who would eagerly give him a job. He will not have any problems,” the lawyer said. 
 
 “He needs to work. He is not a rich man, and the money that he had, he has of course, spent on food. Of course, he understands that he has to work and he has to keep on living.” 
 
 Snowden was already offered a job by Russia’s top social networking site on Thursday, hours after the former intelligence contractor received asylum in Russia. 
 
 Moscow has refused Washington’s repeated requests to hand Snowden over to face trial on espionage charges after he leaked details of secret U.S. surveillance programs involving phone and Internet data. 
 
 Although the spat over his fate has heightened tensions with Washington, Snowden is also a useful propaganda tool for Moscow, which often accuses the United States of preaching on human rights abroad what it does not practice at home. 
 
 A Kremlin-funded television station has made Wikileaks founder Julian Assange the host of his own program, while Russian spy Anna Chapman has found work with a bank and stars in her own TV show since she was deported by the United States in a 2011 Cold War-style swap. 
 
 Kucherena suggested Snowden might hope for the same hero’s welcome in Russia. 
 
 “I don’t exclude that he will have his own TV show,” he told Reuters.
– Russia is considering handing over Edward Snowden as a "gift" to "curry favor" with President Trump, an intelligence source tells NBC. The source claims the handover was discussed in intercepted Russian conversations. Trump has repeatedly described the NSA leaker as a "traitor" who deserves harsh punishment, tweeting in 2013 that Snowden is a "spy who should be executed." In July last year, Trump said that if he became president, Putin would return Snowden to the US. Snowden, however, says the report is proof that he isn't a spy, the Guardian reports. "Finally: irrefutable evidence that I never cooperated with Russian intel," he tweeted Friday. "No country trades away spies, as the rest would fear they're next." A Putin spokesman says reports of a Snowden handover are "nonsense," though former deputy national security adviser Juan Zarate tells NBC that such a move would be a "win-win" for Russia. "They've already extracted what they needed from Edward Snowden in terms of information and they've certainly used him to beat the United States over the head in terms of its surveillance and cyber activity," he says. Intelligence sources tell CNN and CBS that intercepted conversations also suggest reports of an explosive Russian dossier on Trump should be taken seriously, though they stress that no proof of "the more salacious things" in the dossier has surfaced. (Last month, Snowden moved a step closer to Russian citizenship.)