The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee has found no evidence to support suspicions that security leaker Edward Snowden may have been working for a foreign power when he leaked classified documents, the panel's head said.
"I have no information to that effect, I have never seen anything to that effect," Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California, whose committee was investigating the allegations, told MSNBC news on Tuesday.
Feinstein said that she "asked some questions" after promising that her committee would investigate, but "nothing has been forthcoming."
Feinstein and her U.S. House counterpart Mike Rogers, a Republican from Michigan, both said on Jan. 19 that their intelligence committees would look into suspicions that Snowden may have been in touch with Russia or another foreign power while still working as a defense contractor on U.S. soil.
While Feinstein said she could not completely rule out the possibility and promised that her committee would investigate, Rogers said outright he doubted it was a "a gee-whiz luck event" that Snowden "ended up in Moscow under the handling of the FSB," or Federal Security Service.
"I believe there's a reason he ended up in the hands, the loving arms, of an FSB agent in Moscow," Rogers told NBC's "Meet the Press" program.
Snowden denied the accusation as "absurd" in an interview with The New Yorker published last week.
No evidence of Snowden's possible contacts with a foreign spy service have ever been published, and a senior FBI official said recently that it was still the bureau's conclusion that Snowden had acted alone.
