Rep. Jim Himes (D., Conn.) on Wednesday night justified the intelligence agency leaks against President Donald Trump's administration and called those responsible for the leaks "patriots."

Himes emphasized that the leaks directly contradict reports given from the White House, the most recent being about the January Yemen raid that resulted in Navy SEAL Ryan Owens' death.

"So, tonight there is another breaking story that ten senior level officials in the administration are reporting that to date there is no credible intelligence that was gathered as a result of the raid that killed that Navy SEAL," he said.

Himes said that this was an example of more leaks coming out of the intelligence community.

"We are seeing, and by the way, this is not necessarily a good thing, but we are seeing an awful lot of leaks and you ask yourself why," he said. "Because the people who are leaking, whether they're within CIA or the Department of Justice–look, these are people who could be making an awful lot more money anywhere else and, you know, I work with them very closely."

He called them "patriots" for leaking information to the public, saying they're doing this out of love for their country.

"They are patriots," he said. "They care about the country. And my own belief is that when you get the FBI and the CIA and, you know, the executive branch as a whole coming forward, they are saying to themselves, ‘what is happening is that the White House is not being truthful.' And look, we have evidence of that in the past, and so I think there are a lot of people who are saying, ‘look, the statement that the Attorney General made is simply not true.'"

Himes said that these kinds of leaks were why former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn had to resign from his position.

"This is how, this is of course how Mike Flynn went down, right?" he said. "The Deputy Attorney General said Mike Flynn has said something to the Vice President about his phone calls with the Russian Ambassador, which is simply not true. That opens the possibility that Russia might, therefore, seek to blackmail the National Security Adviser."

Himes used this example to justify employees leaking information.

"So you see people throughout the government, and leaks are a problematic thing, but they're raising their hands and saying, ‘wait a minute, what we're hearing out of the White House is simply not consistent with the facts that I know,'" he said.