DAVID GREGORY TO GLENN GREENWALD: 'Why Shouldn't You Be Charged With A Crime?'
NBC"Meet the Press" moderator David Gregory had a heated exchange with Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald on Sunday, during which Gregory asked Greenwald, point blank, if he should be charged with a crime for his role in publishing leaked classified documents from NSA leaker Edward Snowden.
"To the extent that you have aided and abetted Snowden," Gregory said, "even in his current movements, why shouldn't you, Mr. Greenwald, be charged with a crime?"
"I think it's pretty extraordinary that anybody who would call themselves a journalist would publicly muse about whether or not other journalists should be charged with felonies," Greenwald responded.
"The assumption in your question, David, is completely without evidence — the idea that I've 'aided and abetted' him in any way."
Greenwald accused Gregory of advocating a position that has touched off some controversy in recent weeks with the Obama administration and leak investigations. Greenwald pointed to the Justice Department's obtaining of Associated Press reporters' phone records and its investigation involving Fox News reporter James Rosen.
"The scandal that arose in Washington before our stories began was about the fact that the Obama administration is trying to criminalize investigative journalism — by going through the emails and phone records of AP reporters, accusing a Fox News journalist of the theory you just embraced — being a 'co-conspirator.'"
Here's the clip:
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