Pelosi jokes Snowden ‘can stay’ in Moscow

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she’s unsure what information Edward Snowden might still have, and defended her criticism of the man who leaked classified details of government surveillance programs.

Snowden is reportedly in hiding in a Moscow airport, where Pelosi said in jest that she wouldn’t mind if he remained.

{mosads}”I think it’s pretty good that he’s stuck in a Moscow airport. That’s okay with me.  He can stay there, that’s fine,” she joked.

Pressed on whether more efforts should be made to pursue him, however, she said that it’s unclear how much of a threat he could be.

“We have to know what is it that he has. And I don’t know that he has that much substance,” she said. 

Pelosi was speaking earlier this week, before news broke on Sunday that Snowden had leaked information to the German newspaper Der Spiegel about the U.S. government’s efforts to spy on European Union offices.

Snowden has been the subject of controversy over whether his actions were those of a whistle-blowing hero or a traitor. Pelosi received boos when she criticized his actions in a recent speech in California, but she defended that position on Sunday.

She said that the fact he’s threatening to leak secrets to foreign governments “should disabuse anybody of the notion that he is a hero.”

This story was updated at 1:43 p.m.