Eric Holder says Edward Snowden performed 'public service' with NSA leak

Former attorney general gives whistleblower credit for starting debate over surveillance – but says Snowden should still be punished

Edward Snowden appears on a live video feed broadcast from Moscow at a 2015 event. Photograph: Marco Garcia/AP

Amanda Holpuch in New York-Monday 30 May 2016

The former US attorney general Eric Holder has said the National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden performed a “public service” by starting a debate over government surveillance techniques.

Speaking on a podcast hosted by David Axelrod, a former campaign strategist for Barack Obama, Holder emphasized, however, that Snowden must still be punished.

“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 said, in an hourlong discussion on The Axe Files.

“Now, I would say that doing what he did – and the way he did it – was inappropriate and illegal.”

In June 2013, in one of the biggest document leaks in American history, Snowden revealed to media outlets including the Guardian that the NSA conducted indiscriminate bulk surveillance of US citizens. 

The agency said this mass data collection had been kept secret in order to protect Americans.

Holder, who led the justice department during the document leak, said Snowden “harmed American interests” by releasing the files.

“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,” Holder told Axelrod.

“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.”

Though Holder said Snowden should return to the US to face trial, he added that any judge who tried him should account for his contribution to the debate about mass surveillance.

“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,” Holder said.

Snowden has said repeatedly that he would return to the US if he could get a fair trial.

“But, as I think you’re quite familiar, the Espionage Act does not permit a public interest defense,” 

Snowden told a University of Chicago event earlier this month. “You’re not allowed to speak the word ‘whistleblower’ at trial.”

Snowden, who was a contractor for the NSA, has lived in Russia in the years following the leaks. Russia first granted him temporary asylum, then in 2014 gave him a three-year residency.

The frontrunners in the 2016 presidential race, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, have said Snowden should be punished, though they disagree in how serious that punishment should be.

In a Democratic debate in October, Clinton said Snowden should return and be put on trial. Bernie Sanders, now the only other Democratic contender, agreed, though he said he thought Snowden “played a very important role in educating the American public”.

In 2013, Trump implied that Snowden should be executed. In March, he said the US should get Snowden back from Russia because he is a spy. The Kremlin said it would not entertain such a plan.

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Holder has shown some leniency toward Snowden before, but his use of the phrase “public service” turned heads.

In January 2014, Holder told an audience at the University of Virginia that the government could accept a plea deal with Snowden if he were to return to the US and plead guilty to criminal charges.

He reiterated the possibility of a plea deal last year, after stepping down from his post as the country’s top law enforcement officer in April 2015 and returning to private practice with the Washington law firm Covington & Burling.

“I certainly think there could be a basis for a resolution that everybody could ultimately be satisfied with,” Holder told Yahoo News in July 2015. He added that the disclosures “spurred a necessary debate”.

Snowden did not immediately comment on Holder’s latest statement, though he did retweet a message posted by Glenn Greenwald, a journalist, now at the Intercept, to whom Snowden leaked the NSA documents.

Next to a screenshot of a CNN headline depicting Holder’s comments, the former Guardian columnist wrote: “People so often become honest and candid only once they leave government.”