Grant political asylum to a Straftäter (criminal offender)? Not even Germany can pull that one off. Angie & Co. just said nein to this indistinct possibility.
It was nice for leading figures in the German Outrage Industry to pretend like they could for fifteen minutes or so, I guess, but sooner or later even the best/worst of them have to come back down to Planet Earth again.
Die Voraussetzungen für eine Aufnahme des Whistleblowers lägen nicht vor, sagte Regierungssprecher Steffen Seibert.
PS: But it ain’t over till it’s over, Amerika. Vice President of German Parliament (one of six – nice work if you can get it) Claudia Roth HERSELF is still planning to press criminal charges or something. Someone is suspected of having actually listened once to what she said on her little green cellphone – eavesdropping-wise, I mean. And I pity the fool who gets in her way (thanks A.K.).
Observing Hermann 
There’s no end to this spy business, because anybody standing in the outfield in front of the Bundestag, could be selling balloons and at the same time, be collecting cellphone transmissions with special “Made in Germany” Fernmeldegeräte and be reporting them back to, well, almost anywhere, maybe even to NSA. And tomorrow, it’d be reported as factual in some German newspaper that the Bundestag is planning a law, prohibiting future 007 movies or that we need a new Local City-Abhöraktions-Auffänger Beauftragter for every Dorf between Buxtehude and Garmisch.