Bob Woodward Wishes Snowden Had Come to Him Instead

By: Andrew Beaujon | Poynter

In an interview with Larry King scheduled to run Thursday night, Bob Woodward talked about NSA leaker Edward Snowden. “I wish he’d come to me instead of others, particularly The Guardian, and I would have said to him ‘let’s not reveal who you are. Let’s make you a protected source and give me time with this data and let’s sort it out and present it in a coherent way,’ ” Woodward tells King.

He continues: I think people are confused about whether it’s illegal, whether it’s bad, whether it’s bad policy. So, what he did, and it’s pretty clear he’s held some things back, and he has said he didn’t want to do anything that he deemed harmful. Now, you know, clearly broke the law, like Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon papers broke the law. And we’re going to see. I wouldn’t…I certainly wouldn’t call him a hero.