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270 | HOW AMERICA LOST ITS SECRETS deemed others too sensitive for journalists. So I wanted to find out from Kucherena which documents Snowden had taken to Russia. I went about it in a roundabout way. When Shevardnadze asked him about the secret material Snowden might reveal in Russia, Kucher- ena pointedly called her attention to Snowden’s CIA service, suggest- ing that he might possess CIA files. I also knew that in Kucherena’s roman 4 clef, he had Joshua Frost, the thinly veiled Snowden-based character, steal a vast number of CIA documents that could do great damage to U.S. intelligence. By retaining them, Frost made himself a prime target of the CIA. So I asked, “Is Joshua Frost fact or fiction?” “T can’t tell you that,” he said. “If I said he was Snowden, it would violate the attorney-client privilege.” “T understand,” I said. “But did Snowden do what Frost did in your book?” “That is for you to decide,” he answered with a sly smile. “It’s my first novel.” When I asked if he could arrange for me to see Snowden, he ) said that first I would have to submit my questions to Ben Wizner, © Snowden’s American lawyer at the ACLU. He made it clear to me that the exposure of Snowden to journalists, or at least the vetting of journalists, had been outsourced to Wizner. Kucherena was handling Snowden’s liaisons with the Russian authorities while Wizner was handling the Snowden narrative, including selecting the media out- lets. Presumably, Wizner had handpicked Snowden’s past interview- ers in Moscow, including Barton Gellmna, James Bamford, Brian Williams, John Oliver, Alan Rusbridger, and Katrina vanden Heuvel. “After that, the final decision is up to Snowden,” he said. That seemed to conclude the interview, but as I got up to leave, he added, “His legal defense is fairly expensive.” Snowden had said in a BBC interview in 2015, as previously men- tioned, that he had brought enough cash to Hong Kong and Russia to cover all of his expenses. So I asked Kucherena if Snowden had brought his own funds. “He was penniless when he arrived,” he replied. I found that answer plausible because the FBI reportedly had not found a large cash withdrawal from his account before his departure and it seemed | | Epst_9780451494566_2p_all_r.indd 270 ® 9/3016 8:13AM | | HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019758