Fifteen former staff members of the Church committee, the 1970s congressional inquiry into illegal activity by the CIA, wrote jointly to the US president 
 
 The campaign to persuade Barack Obama to allow the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden to return home to the US without facing prolonged prison time has received powerful new backing from some of the most experienced intelligence experts in the country. “There is no question that Edward Snowden’s disclosures led to public awareness which stimulated reform,” wrote the staffers who served on the U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operation with Respect to Intelligence Activities — called the Church Committee, after its chairman, Idaho Sen. Frank Church. “Whether or not these clear benefits to the country merit a pardon, they surely do counsel for leniency,” the authors continued. 15 former members of the 1970s Church Committee, led by its former chief counsel Frederick Schwarz Jr. and ex-staff director William Green Miller, sent an eight-page letter to the President and Attorney General Loretta Lynch arguing that Snowden’s actions were a catalyst that helped change secret service policy for the better. “The government has all but stopped making bipartisan reforms,” they wrote, arguing that this has left whistleblowers to take matters into their own hands. “When intelligence agencies operate in the dark, they often have gone too far in trampling on the legitimate rights of law-abiding Americans and damaging our reputation internationally.” 
 
 They also noted that the government has been lenient towards senior national security officials who have been involved in divulging secrets, like former CIA Director David Petraeus, who provided classified information to his biographer, with whom he was having an affair, and pled guilty to a simple misdemeanor. While Obama has refused to pardon him, even in the wake of President-elect Donald Trump nominating a man who once said Snowden should be executed for head of the CIA, the Church committee group said Snowden’s disclosures have been instrumental in enacting much-needed change.  Members of a committee that investigated the CIA during the Watergate era have urged President Obama to show leniency on NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and strike a deal to allow him to return home.
– “Snowden did not try to mask his identity, or lie to the FBI. He knew he would pay a personal price. As he has,” 15 former staff members of the Church Committee write in an 8-page letter to President Obama. The Church Committee investigated illegal activity by intelligence agencies in the 1970s, and now its experts are asking for leniency for Edward Snowden, the Guardian reports. According to the Intercept, the group argues that Snowden, acting selflessly, "stimulated reform" through his actions. The letter writers say that without Snowden, Americans may still not know “what intelligence agencies acting in our name had been up to," TechCrunch reports. The letter gives more weight to the movement to get Snowden pardoned, though the members of the Church Committee don't go that far; they want Snowden to strike a deal with the government. “There is no question that Snowden broke the law," they write. "But previous cases in which others violated the same law suggest leniency." They point to former CIA director David Petraeus, currently being considered by Donald Trump for secretary of State. He leaked confidential information in violation of national security but received no jail time after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor. In contrast, Snowden is facing a sentence of 30 years if he returns to the US from Russia, where he has been living in exile.