Rep. Rohrabacher: NSA Leaker 'Was Being Loyal to the Rest of Us'

Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) said accused NSA leaker Edward Snowden “was being loyal to the rest of us” on Sunday’s broadcast of This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

The video of Rohrabacher was played after Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) said Snowden “undermined America’s security” and that he “is a fugitive who deserves to be in an American courtroom, not in asylum in Russia.” 

Rohrabacher also said Snowden did what he did to let “the American people know that [the] government was getting out of hand.” Viewed in this light, he said that Russia’s grant of asylum “was not as hostile an act as it’s being portrayed.”

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Ed Boyce (R-CA) followed these statements by making it clear that he disagrees with Rohrabacher. According to Royce, Snowden made it harder for intelligence agencies to do their job when he revealed methods the U.S. is using to acquire intelligence. 

According to Royce, Al Qaeda is working to expand their bomb-building network using Yemen affiliates. This means an expansion of the kinds of bombs the U.S. fears will be “surgically implanted” in bombers and will be undetectable to U.S. security. Royce said that at this same time, while the U.S. is working hard to get ahead of any terror plot with the new bombs, Snowden is “giving up the means and methods [by] which we’re tracking Al Qaeda,” and this “is a problem for the United States.”

Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter @AWRHawkins.