What is, unfortunately, the American way, is to try to find something else to charge him with (see Assange for example), not only to silence him but also to discredit him. Do not be surprised if allegations of pedophilia or other crimes are made.
Many decades ago my mother's uncle (http://depts.washington.edu/labhist/cpproject/caughlan_inter...) began to build his private legal practice on defending people from Smith Act prosecutions due to involvement with the Communist Party USA (ironically he never really considered profit much of a motivator for him, and he left a high powered law firm to defend the Community Party), distributing Marxist literature, and the like. Did the government come after him? Yes. With the Smith Act? No. They didn't want to come right out and say "we don't want these people to have good legal representation." Instead they came with a variety of unrelated, and eventually sent him to prison for a year. Unusually he was reinstated to the bar on his release (which is somewhat unusual). (Listening to the interviews with him, I hadn't known he was kicked out of the ACLU for defending civil liberties of Communists.)
The goal wasn't to throw him in prison but to take away his voice. It didn't work with John. He went on to fight, fight, and fight some more, eventually winning significant victories for political freedom in this country. With someone like Greenwald, though I don't know. It does seem to have been fairly effective at discrediting Assange.
I harp a lot on "Show me the man and I'll find you the crime" and certainly we are not at the same level the Stalinist USSR was, but I can tell you that it is something that has roots in the US as well.