CNBC host: 'I'd almost arrest Glenn Greenwald' for helping NSA leaker

CNBC host Andrew Ross Sorkin on Monday suggested that he would "almost arrest" Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald for assisting National Security Agency (NSA) leaker Edward Snowden.

During a Sunday interview, Greenwald had shamed NBC's David Gregory after the Meet the Press host asked why he shouldn't be "charged with a crime" for his role the NSA leaks.

According to a transcript provided by The Washington Post, Sorkin expressed a similar sentiment on Monday after learning that Snowden had apparently slipped out of Hong Kong and stopped over in Russia on his way to seek asylum in Ecuador.

"I feel like, A, we’ve screwed this up to even let him get to Russia. B, clearly the Chinese hate us to even let him out of the country," Sorkin explained. "And my second piece of this… I would arrest him and now I’d almost arrest Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who seems to be out there, he wants to help him get to Ecuador."

In an exchange with Greenwald, Sorkin later clarified on Twitter that he was "not saying you or any journalists should be arrested. i'm FOR transparency. i was raising other [questions]."

Greenwald responded to Sorkin in an interview with DemocracyNow on Monday.

"I don't know of anybody who has a lower opinion of the beltway media generally, of David Gregory specifically, for that matter, Andrew Ross Sorkin, specifically, than I do, and yet it actually is even surprising to me to watch them openly do the dirty work of the U.S. government in essentially suggesting publicly that journalists who report on what the government is doing ought to be turned into criminals," Greenwald said.

"Rather than to defend what is supposed to be their right that they are supposed to safeguard, which is freedom of the press, they are leading the chorus against other journalists on behalf of the government that they serve, demanding essentially and theorizing that we're guilty of crimes for doing what journalists are supposed to do, which is shining a light on what political officials are doing in the dark."

Watch this video from CNBC's Squawk Box, broadcast June 24, 2013.

Watch this video from DemocracyNow, broadcast June 24, 2013.