Moscow, June 28 (RHC)-- Lawyers working on the case of Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency whistle-blower, are ramping up pressure on U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration for a presidential pardon. 

According to a report published in The New York Magazine, Ben Wizner of the American Civil Liberties Union, said: “We’re going to make a very strong case between now and the end of this administration that this is one of those rare cases for which the pardon power exists.  It’s not for when somebody didn’t break the law.  It’s for when they did and there are extraordinary reasons for not enforcing the law against the person.”

Snowden says that while he has been granted asylum in Russia, he does not expect -- nor want -- to die there.  He said he is optimistic he will find a way out, perhaps through a Scandinavian country offering him asylum, or through clemency or a plea bargain with the U.S. Justice Department.

Wizner has been working closely with Plato Cacheris, a well-connected Washington defense attorney, but there have been no signs so far that the U.S. Justice Department will offer terms Snowden would be willing to accept to go back to the United States.

With Obama's time in office coming to an end, time for a presidential pardon is running out, with both major U.S. presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, even less likely to offer him reprieve.  Hillary Clinton has cast him as a criminal while Trump has called him a traitor deserving execution.