(edit title) Can Holder Prevent Snowden Facing Death Penalty? Is Attorney General Setting Trap For Enemies? Options

[Model T Ford]

Attorney General Eric Holder has written the Russians, urging them to hand over the whistleblower, assuring them that Snowden is not facing any charge which carries the death penalty.

But a federal grand jury has not indicted him of anything, and what it finally does depends upon how it reacts to the prosectors' claims.

While grand juries have been traditionally been seen, though without much evidence, as shields against aggressive prosecutors, there is nothing to prevent grand juries from using their investigative powers to come up with still more serious charges, especially if one is chosen with the idea of obtaining this result.

Is Holder hoping to set a sly trap for Snowden at his and Putin's expense?

Sure looks like it to me

[CathySky]

Nobody deserves the death penalty, no matter what they have done!
Should Snowden have exposed his former employers, NO. But he doesn't deserve to die by doing what he considered to be the right thing at the time.

[Gamla Hälsingebock]

Since when is Holder the appointed Secretary of State?

[Model T Ford]

Since he figured out how to con the Russians into handing over Snowden who can then be put away at least for life by a federal grand jury which wants to show that they can still serve the national interest.

[Gamla Hälsingebock]

National Interest is in the eyes of the interested...Snowden is innocent...he merely told what uninterested people were doing.

[The Nine]

Has no one yet worked out the Snowden thing?. I will give you a clue. He is being looked after by both sides.

[Model T Ford]

Wrong, Snowden is a ticking bomb that no one wants to explode on their premises - the Americans because it would show what a bunch of unprincipled bastards they have been, the Russians because it would show them in a similar but false light, and the Chinese for the same reasons.

So everyone is trying to prevent any explosions, especially on their own premises. Until something explosive happens, they are just trying to smother it..

[cogito]

Since when is Holder the appointed Secretary of State?

Neither S of S nor Attorney Gen. He is viceroy, sock puppet for the king.

"Pour decourager les autres," the French used to say when they executed public "enemies" as a spectator sport to scare the populace into submission.

Now whistle-blowers are labeled traitors and enemies of the state and hung by the a submissive press who fear for their own neck .