Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald blasted NBC host David Gregory on Sunday for publicly entertaining the idea that he should be prosecuted for publishing secret National Security Agency (NSA) documents leaked by former U.S. government contractor Edward Snowden.

“To the extent that you have aided and abetted Snowden, even in his current movements, why shouldn’t you, Mr. Greenwald, be charged with a crime?” Gregory asked the columnist in a Sunday interview.

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“I think it’s pretty extraordinary that anybody who would call themself a journalist would publicly muse about whether or not other journalists should be charged with felonies,” Greenwald shot back. “The assumption in your question, David, is completely without evidence, David — the idea that I’ve aided and abetted him in any way.”

“If you want to embrace that theory it means that every investigative journalist in the United States who works with their sources, who receives classified information is a criminal,” he continued. “And it’s precisely those theories and precisely that climate that has become so menacing in the United States.”

“Well, the question of who’s a journalist may be up to debate with regard of what you are doing,” Gregory opined. “And of course, anybody who’s watching this understands I was asking a question, that question has been raised by lawmakers as well.”

“I’m not embracing anything, but obviously I take your point,” the NBC host insisted.

Watch this video from NBC’s Meet the Press via Video Cafe, broadcast June 23, 2013.

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