Former Obama administration attorney general Eric Holder says former National Security Administration employee Edward Snowden performed a "public service" by leaking information on warrantless government spying on citizens that also included sensitive overseas national security information.
"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 tells former Obama advisor David Axelrod on his new CNN podcast "The Axe Files."
"Now I would say that doing what he did -- and the way he did it -- was inappropriate and illegal," said Holder.
"He harmed American interests 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," said Holder.
