[robbedpeter]

Snowden was forced to seek asylum in Russia by Biden, specifically, because the US would not agree to prosecute his case fairly, in public, in civilian court. If I was a whistle-blower and was being pursued by a government that wanted to drop me in a black site, I think it's a no-shit-Sherlock decision to run like hell.

They were so desperate to protect the Five Eyes mutual spying and the vast terrifying illegal surveillance network that they decided it was better to effectively exile the whistle-blower.

Imagine the shit that Biden rubber stamps.

[wahern]

The U.S. would have bigger problems if the President could guarantee prosecutorial decisions.[1] If Snowden's defense lawyers wanted particular guarantees regarding how they can present their defense, they should be talking to Congress, or at least to the DoJ, not the President.

[1] And almost did, not too long ago.

[robbedpeter]

Obama went after him hard, and Biden, specifically, ran Snowden to ground in Russia, specifically, as a political gambit to discredit Snowden. Specifically.

They announced exactly how he was going to be captured and tried, and it didn't involve the Constitutional protections afforded citizens. Snowden didn't run because he was afraid of going to court, but because the US intended to disappear him.

[wahern]

Snowden is afraid to go to court because, unfortunately, he has no viable defense to the charges. Snowden's defense lawyers want to make a so-called "public interest" defense, but neither the DoJ nor the courts are likely to permit such a defense. (Though, I'm unsure if a court might allow it if the prosecution failed to challenge it.) This is a well known point of contention publicly described by both Snowden and his lawyers for years now.

This is why people, including Snowden himself, can have such a high degree of confidence in the outcome of any trial. For the situation to change, Congress probably needs to modify the law.