Intelligence chair: NSA leaker Edward Snowden may have had Russian help

Edward Snowden is currently in Russia, where he was granted asylum. Photograph: The Guardian/AFP/Getty Images

Russia may have helped the former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden to reveal details of surveillance programmes and escape US authorities last year, the chairman of the House intelligence committee claimed on Sunday.

Mike Rogers, a Republican representative from Michigan, interviewed by NBC's Meet the Press, said Snowden was 'a thief whom we believe had some help'.

'I believe there's questions to be answered there,' Rogers said. 'I don't think it was a gee-whiz luck event that he ended up in Moscow under the handling of the [Russian intelligence service] FSB.'

Rogers added: 'Let me just say this. I believe there's a reason he ended up in the hands, the loving arms, of an FSB agent in Moscow. I don't think that's a coincidence.'

Rogers' comments were backed by Michael McCaul, chairman of the House committee on homeland security. Speaking from Moscow, the Texas Republican told ABC's This Week: 'I believe he [Snowden] was cultivated by a foreign power to do what he did.'

Snowden was granted temporary asylum in Russia last August, after travelling to Moscow from Hong Kong. Last year, in an interview with the New York Times, Snowden said he did not take any of the documents he obtained to Russia, 'because it wouldn't serve the public interest'.

Snowden said there was 'zero-percent chance' that Russia had received any documents and that he had handed all his NSA data to journalists from media outlets including the Guardian, before leaving Hong Kong. 'What would be the unique value of personally carrying another copy of the materials onward?' he said.

Snowden has consistently denied any involvement with foreign spying agencies and said he leaked the documents because he believed the NSA programmes were against the best interests of the US people.

'I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things,' he told the Guardian last year.

Rogers did not give any supporting evidence for his claims, but suggested Snowden 'used methods beyond his technical capabilities' and had help with his travel arrangements.

'He was stealing information that had to do with how we operate overseas to collect information to keep Americans safe ... and some of the things he did were beyond his technical capabilities,' Rogers said.

Rogers's comments came after President Barack Obama outlined possible reforms to surveillance practices and a review of the NSA's programmes on Friday. The speech met with a mixed reaction from privacy advocates and tech and telecoms companies, all of whom said there was too little detail and little clarity on how or if the system was being reformed.

Rogers was also critical of Obama. Also on Sunday, he told CNN's State of the Union that Friday's speech had created more uncertainty in the intelligence community and was potentially dangerous.

'We really did need a decision on Friday and what we got was lots of uncertainty,' he said. 'And just in my conversations over the weekend with intelligence officials, that level of uncertainty is already having a bit of an impact on our ability to protect Americans by finding terrorists trying to reach into the United States.'

He added: 'I just don't think we want to go to pre-9/11 just because we haven't had an attack.'