Republican presidential nominee Jeb Bush says he's outraged at the idea of Edward Snowden receiving a plea deal and being allowed back into the United States.

Bush tweeted that Snowden "should be given no leniency" for his actions.

Snowden has been charged with three felonies under the Espionage Act for distributing tens of thousands of government documents to the press. Those leaks, however, made Snowden a hero to many because they revealed the vast surveillance program involving the collection of bulk phone data, which Congress scaled back just weeks ago.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder said on Monday that the U.S. may have benefitted from Snowden stealing approximately 1.7 million documents from the National Security Agency Net and the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communication System.

"We are in a different place as a result of the Snowden disclosures," Holder said. "His actions spurred a necessary debate. I certainly think there could be a basis for a resolution that everybody could ultimately be satisfied with — I think the possibility exists."

However, some, such as former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden, oppose the idea of a plea deal.

Snowden's act "was the greatest hemorrhaging of legitimate American secrets in the history of the republic, no question about it," Hayden said, according to the Free Beacon. "I'm quite stunned that we would be considering any return of Snowden to this country other than to meet a jury of his peers, period."

Snowden's attorney, Ben Wizner, said Holder's comments were the closest things to acknowledging that Snowden's actions may have had a positive impact on the U.S., Yahoo Politics reported.

"The former attorney general's recognition that Snowden's actions led to meaningful changes is welcome," said Wizner. "This is significant ... I don't think we've seen this kind of respect from anybody at a Cabinet level before."