Eric Holder says Edward Snowden performed a 'public service'
Eric Holder says Edward Snowden performed a 'public
service'
Matthew Jaffe, University of Chicago Institute of
Politics
Updated 8:07 AM ET, Mon May 30, 2016
Story highlights
Eric Holder says Edward Snowden acted illegally, but that
he did a public service
The former Attorney General also said there is a
"race-based" component to Trump's campaign
The Axe Files, featuring David Axelrod, is a podcast
distributed by CNN and produced at the University of Chicago Institute of
Politics. The author works at the institute.
Chicago (CNN)Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder
says Edward Snowden performed a "public service" by triggering a
debate over surveillance techniques, but still must pay a penalty for illegally
leaking a trove of classified intelligence documents.
"We can certainly argue about the way in which
Snowden did what he did, but I think that he actually performed a public
service by raising the debate that we engaged in and by the changes that we
made," Holder told David Axelrod on "The Axe Files," a podcast
produced by CNN and the University of Chicago Institute of Politics.
"Now I would say that doing what he did -- and the
way he did it -- was inappropriate and illegal," Holder added.
Holder said Snowden jeopardized America's security
interests by leaking classified information while working as a contractor for
the National Security Agency in 2013.
"He harmed American interests," said Holder,
who was at the helm of the Justice Department when Snowden leaked U.S.
surveillance secrets. "I know there are ways in which certain of our
agents were put at risk, relationships with other countries were harmed, our
ability to keep the American people safe was compromised. There were all kinds
of re-dos that had to be put in place as a result of what he did, and while
those things were being done we were blind in certain really critical areas. So
what he did was not without consequence."
Snowden, who has spent the last few years in exile in
Russia, should return to the U.S. to deal with the consequences, Holder noted.
"I think that he's got to make a decision. He's
broken the law in my view. He needs to get lawyers, come on back, and decide,
see what he wants to do: Go to trial, try to cut a deal. I think there has to
be a consequence for what he has done."
"But," Holder emphasized, "I think in
deciding what an appropriate sentence should be, I think a judge could take
into account the usefulness of having had that national debate."
At a University of Chicago Institute of Politics event
earlier this month, Snowden -- appearing via videoconference from Russia --
said he would return to the U.S. if he could receive a fair trial.
"I've already said from the very first moment that
if the government was willing to provide a fair trial, if I had access to
public interest defenses and other things like that, I would want to come home
and make my case to the jury," Snowden told University of Chicago Law
Prof. Geoffrey Stone. "But, as I think you're quite familiar, the Espionage
Act does not permit a public interest defense. You're not allowed to speak the
word 'whistleblower' at trial."
During the hour-long conversation with Axelrod, Holder --
the country's first African-American attorney general -- also accused
presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump of playing the race card in his
campaign.
"I don't think there's any question about
that," Holder told Axelrod. "The fact that he questioned the
legitimacy of President Obama by questioning where he was born, what he's said
about Mexicans...I think there's a race-based component to his campaign. I
think he appeals too often to the worst side of us as Americans."
To hear the whole conversation with Holder, which also
touched on his childhood in New York City, his tenure at the Justice
Department, and more, click on http://podcast.cnn.com. To get "The Axe
Files" podcast every week, subscribe at http://itunes.com/theaxefiles.
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