Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, pointedly noted that the United States had returned "numerous high level criminals back to Russia at the request of the Russian government," then added: "We expect the Russian government to look at all options available to expel Mr. Snowden back to the U.S. to face justice for the crimes with which he is charged".
Once again, US frustration was evident; a Justice Department spokeswoman noting that the US had "returned numerous high level criminals back to Russia at the request of the Russian government".
"This doesn't seem to be high-level criminal activity," the person said, adding, "Obviously, when you have someone in his position involved in gambling, it is a concern".
The informer may be a high-level criminal and a traitor to his friends, but he is also an essential tool of law enforcement and crime prevention when properly used.
As Kenneth Starr surely knows, the Office of the Independent Counsel was created to remove real or perceived conflicts of interest in the pursuit of high-level criminal investigations.
She has been quoted as saying: "My translations of the 9/11 intercepts included [terrorist] money laundering, detailed and date-specific information... if they were to do real investigations, we would see several significant high-level criminal prosecutions in this country [the US]... and believe me, they will do everything to cover this up".
"We are definitely saddened, as with any death," said Dr. Peter Phillips, a former Jamaican minister of national security, "but I think it would do Jamaica well to examine his own admissions in his establishment of high-level criminal organizations in Jamaica".
For ferrying loads of heroin, Tovar-Ramos earned $24,000 per year, barely above the poverty line.7 In the cartel's heroin distribution system, he was a manual laborer, not the "high-level criminal" that politicians claimed.
It also tracks blank stolen passports reported around the world as well as information about known terrorists and other high-level criminals.
What this program particularly demonstrated was that the Obama justice department, in particular the Chief of its Criminal Division, Lanny Breuer, never even tried to hold the high-level criminals accountable.
