The espionage act famously does not allow for whistleblowing as a defense. Tulsi Gabbard [1], Rashida Tlaib [2], Ron Wyden and Ro Khanna [3] (and perhaps others) have tried to introduce legislation to change this. For example, Reality Winner was unable to make any public interest arguments in her defense [4]. Ed Snowden has repeatedly said he would happily return to the US to face trial if he were allowed to make a public interest defense. For example, in a 2019 NPR interview [5]:

> My ultimate goal will always be to return to the United States. And I've actually had conversations with the government, last in the Obama administration, about what that would look like, and they said, "You should come and face trial." I said, "Sure. Sign me up. Under one condition: I have to be able to tell the jury why I did what I did, and the jury has to decide: Was this justified or unjustified." This is called a public interest defense and is allowed under pretty much every crime someone can be charged for. Even murder, for example, has defenses. It can be self-defense and so on so forth, it could be manslaughter instead of first-degree murder. But in the case of telling a journalist the truth about how the government was breaking the law, the government says there can be no defense. There can be no justification for why you did it. The only thing the jury gets to consider is did you tell the journalists something you were not allowed to tell them. If yes, it doesn't matter why you did it. You go to jail. And I have said, as soon as you guys say for whistleblowers it is the jury who decides if it was right or wrong to expose the government's own lawbreaking, I'll be in court the next day.

[1] https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/crsj-fe... [2] https://theintercept.com/2022/07/12/whistleblower-espionage-... [3] https://www.rcfp.org/espionage-act-reform/ [4] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/reality-winner-espionage-act-60... [5] https://www.npr.org/2019/09/19/761918152/exiled-nsa-contract...