Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) joins the ranks of lawmakers calling NSA leaker Edward Snowden a traitor saying that he jeopardized American safety when the NSA had done nothing against the law.
“Absolutely he’s a traitor … and I cannot underscore enough how highly dangerous this was to America’s national security,” Bachmann told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto on Tuesday. “These were important tools that we had at our ready to be able to use to thwart terror attacks. We need to focus on the fact that we cannot allow people to be in positions of sensitive information and to be able to betray the American trust the way that Snowden did. He’s clearly a traitor.”
Bachmann defended the NSA actions, and said that they were not over-collecting private data on American citizens and that there was no evidence of wrong-doing on the organization’s part.
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“The NSA was fastidious about following the law. There’s not one example that came out of any intentional violation of any kind from the law. I think what we saw today pretty clearly is the government isn’t doing what all of these stories are claiming it is,” she added.
As for Snowden’s punishment for “treason,” well, Bachmann hopes to see him brought to justice soon.
“I think he should be extradited out of China. It’s an unbelievable coincidence that all of this information was revealed just when the President was going to take to task China for their cybersecurity espionage and attack within our government’s computer systems. So I think that there may have been a link there,” she said. “But I think clearly he needs to be extradited. He committed treason against his country, he violated our laws and he needs to have justice.”
