My god, do you actually believe that?!
That's genuinely hilarious.
Snowden would have disappeared or been Epstein'd before any court case could really get underway if he stayed in the US, the media would have kept mum about it because thier bosses would have told them too, and nothing would have changed.
If the government had gotten wind of what he was planning before it went public? Absolutely, at best (from his perspective) he would have been arrested for espionage, convicted, and thrown in jail for decades without it getting more than a blip in a few newspapers. More likely he would have been grabbed, sweated for any deadman switches or the like, and then (depending on the degree of sweating that had been required) either been tried & convicted or have a "boating accident".
Once he went public though, the entire equation changes. The information is already out there and, more importantly, the eyes of the public are on him. You don't disappear photogenic US citizens inside the US after they publicly out you for spying on US citizens; the damage when
that inevitably leaks far outweighs the damage from it being known that the NSA is spying on people.
Arrest him, charge him with violating the relevant laws, and then either convict or acquit him. It's the least damaging option.
In truth, politically speaking, Snowden did the US a huge boon by fleeing to China and then Russia. He let the US government avoid the spectacle of a trial, he wasn't around to be called as a witness by Congressional committees, he wasn't easily available to the US media networks and convention circuit. And, most importantly of all, he made it so very easy for him to be called a traitor and betrayer.
Out only the NSA's actual crimes (spying on US citizens inside the US) and then stay in the US for a trial and he would have been basically bulletproof.
Instead he outed a whole host of legitimate US intelligence operations, fled to China and then Russia, and bought safety with both US state secrets and intelligence tools. If Snowden ever ends up in US custody, he will still get a public trial but he will also get life in prison out of it. Just to make things legally clean, they probably wouldn't even charge him with leaking that the NSA spied on US citizens.