(Newswire.net — October 6, 2015) — Edward Snowden is willing to negotiate the terms of his return to the US, even if it means doing some serious jail time. However, he refuses to become an example of ‘what would happened if you try’, for US authorities to use against other whistleblowers, the Guardian reported.
Reportedly, Snowden is willing to serve time behind bars as part of a deal with the US government, however, no deals are ‘on the table’, according to Snowden. If Snowden returns to the US, he would be prosecuted as a spy, which means he will be on trial with no jury, looking at 30 years to life in prison for treason.
“I’ve volunteered to go to prison with the government many times,” Snowden said in an interview, which is set to air on Monday evening. “What I won’t do is, I won’t serve as a deterrent to people trying to do the right thing in difficult situations.”
The Guardian reported that Snowden told BBC Panorama in an interview that, he in fact “volunteered” to spend time in prison in exchange for being able to return to the US.
Despite what Snowden told BBC, former CIA and NSA Director Michael Hayden’s opinion is that Snowden would not be coming back to the US. “If you’re asking me my opinion, he’s going to die in Moscow. He’s not coming home,” Hayden said.
Snowden has said on numerous occasions over the past year, that he is willing to return to the US if the government can guarantee him a fair trial. The NSA is still waiting for the Justice Department to respond. “We are still waiting for them to call us back,” Snowden said.
“I’ve been working exhaustively with the government now since I left to try to find terms of a trial,” he said in March.
The White House, however, is accusing Snowden of treason of the worst kind, even though he proved that it is the government that betrayed the very people it swears to protect.
“The fact is that Mr. Snowden committed very serious crimes,” said White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest at the time. “The US government and the Department of Justice believe that he should face them.”
According the former Attorney General Eric Holder, who led the Justice Department when Snowden first spoke to the Guardian journalist, it is however possible that the Department of Justice could strike a deal with the whistleblower.