Bob Woodward won't call Snowden 'a hero,' still wishes Snowden had come to him with NSA scoop

Veteran Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward says in a new interview with Larry King that NSA leaker Edward Snowden "broke the law" and isn't "a hero." But Woodward still wishes Snowden had come to him with the NSA scoop.

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"I wish he had come to me instead of others, particularly The Guardian," Woodward says in "Politicking with Larry King," which airs Thursday on Hulu. "I would have said to him ‘let’s not reveal who you are. Let’s make you a protected source and give me time with this data and let’s sort it out and present it in a coherent way.’"

Snowden actually did approach the Washington Post's Barton Gellman first with information on government spying, at least according to Gellman. But Snowden went to The Guardian when he wasn't assured that the Post would publish his intel on his terms.

"I think that people are confused about whether it’s illegal, whether it’s bad, whether it’s bad policy," Woodward continued. "So, what he did, and it’s pretty clear he’s held some things back, and he has said he didn’t wanted to do anything that he deemed harmful. Now, [he] clearly broke the law, like Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon papers broke the law. And we’re going to see. I wouldn’t...I certainly wouldn’t call him hero…"