MSNBC’ s Morning Joe panel talked a bit about Edward Snowden’s bosom-buddy Glenn Greenwald Monday, but only managed to apparently double down on David Gregory’s controversial suggestion that the Guardian journo be implicated for crimes along with the NSA whistleblower.
Hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough chided Greenwald for not answering Gregory’s question.
Greenwald, who worked with Snowden and broke the story of the NSA’s secret surveillance program, was asked by Gregory on Sunday why he too shouldn’t be prosecuted. Greenwald’s retort was dodgy, instead addressing the broader implications of Gregory’s line:
“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 said.
“Why didn’t you answer the question?” Brzezinski asked Monday . “I thought that’s what journalists did.”
“It was a question and the correct answer to that question is, ‘It’s outrageous you would suggest i’m aiding and abetting, I’m not.’” Scarborough chimed in. “But if he’s just getting information and putting it in the newspaper that’s one thing.’ If he’s a much bigger part of this story, Kathleen, that’s quite another.”
“We have to be careful,” Kathleen Parker of The Washington Post cautioned. “You don’t prosecute reporters for doing their job.”
Still, Brzezinski and Scarborough seemed to take exception to Greenwald’s often combative relationship with fellow journalists.
“I saw him on the set, you know, Mika asked a question. When people ask him questions, and he knocks their heads off,” Scarborough added.
Check out video of the Morning Joe panel below, during which they talk about the David Gregory/Glenn Greenwald controversy:
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