Eh I think Snowden rightly figured that he would have had a hard time prevailing in court based on his situation. Intelligence agencies can't just say, "this g

Eh I think Snowden rightly figured that he would have had a hard time prevailing in court based on his situation. Intelligence agencies can't just say, "this guy doesn't get a trial". It's just that a trial would have been hard for him to win. To use whistleblower protections, he would've had to go through official channels. But doing so would have made it likely that his concerns would be quashed and that he would've faced retaliatory action. Previous NSA whistleblowers didn't fare well. So with that defense out the window, he would've had to hope a jury would not find him guilty because of what he was attempting to expose. The government would have argued that he stole classified materials and that he signed oaths that he would protect classified materials under penalty of law. They would argue he should be convicted of this theft, whether or not his intentions were noble. That would have been a big gamble to take in court, because if he lost he would've been looking at a long, long time in jail. He could've made a plea deal, but again, a good amount of jail time.