“If he wishes to return knowing he would be held accountable and also able to present a defense, that is his decision to make,” the former secretary of state said in an interview with the Guardian, the newspaper that broke the story uncovering many NSA programs with help from leaks from Snowden. The paper received the Pulitzer Prize for public service reporting for its coverage.

Clinton has been critical of Snowden in the past, calling him an “imperfect messenger” who could have gone about his whistleblowing in a way that would have been less damaging to national security. In April, she said it was “sort of odd” that he fled to China and Russia, countries that have restrictive cyberpolicies, and that his leaks helped certain terrorist networks.

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“Whether he chooses to return or not is up to him,” she said Friday. “He certainly can stay in Russia apparently under Putin’s protection for the rest of his life if that’s what he chooses.”

“But if he is serious about engaging in the debate then he could take the opportunity to come back and have that debate,” she added. “But that’s his decision.”

Snowden and his supporters have long said that he is unlikely to return to the U.S. to stand trial because espionage laws would not entitle him to argue that the information he released should not have been made confidential. Secretary of State John Kerry called on Snowden to “man up and come back to the United States” to face trial and defend himself.

Clinton, who would likely be the front-runner to win the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination if she chooses to run, has been criticized by some liberal members of her party as being too hawkish on national security. In June, she defended the NSA and intelligence community as needing a strong infrastructure.