Is Prez Trump serious about considering a pardon for Edward Snowden?

The question in the title of this post follows from Prez Trump's discussion of this possibility this weekend, as detailed in this Fox News piece.  Here are the basics:

President Trump said he will “look at” the case of Edward Snowden for a potential pardon. “I’m not that aware of the Snowden situation,” Trump told reporters in a briefing Saturday. “Many people think he should be somehow treated differently and other people think he did very bad things.”

“I’m going to take a look at that very strongly,” he added. Trump polled his aides Thursday to see whether he should free the anti-surveillance whistleblower and allow him to return to the U.S. from Russia without fear of arrest. “There are a lot of people that think that he is not being treated fairly. I mean, I hear that,” Trump told the New York Post in an interview....

His comments Saturday reveal remarkable reversal of course about the man he once deemed a “traitor." “Snowden is a spy who should be executed - but if it and he could reveal Obama’s records, I might become a major fan,” Trump wrote on Twitter in 2013.

A number of Republicans have voiced a renewed call for the president to free Snowden. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said he was one of those Trump referred to as believing Snowden was treated unfairly.... Another Kentucky Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie, voiced similar concerns. “Employees of the US government violated the Constitution and lied to Congress and the American people about it.  @Snowden exposed them.  This is bigger than him.  If he’s punished for his service to the Constitution, there will be more violations of the Constitution, and more lies,” Massie wrote on Twitter.

Snowden, hiding in Russia, said last year he would return to the U.S. if he would be guaranteed a fair jury trial.  “That is the ultimate goal, but if I’m going to spend the rest of my life in prison then my one, bottom-line demand that we all have to agree to is that at least I get a fair trial,” Snowden said on “CBS This Morning."  He said that the U.S. government has “refused” to guarantee one.  “They won’t provide access to what’s called a public interest defense,” Snowden said.

The ex-National Security Agency (NSA) contractor blew the lid off U.S. government surveillance methods in 2013.  Moscow has resisted U.S. pressure to extradite Snowden, who faces charges that could land him in prison for up to 30 years.  The Guardian in Britain published the first story based on Snowden's disclosures.  It revealed that a secret court order was allowing the U.S. government to Verizon phone records for millions of Americans.  Later stories, including those in The Washington Post, disclosed other snooping, and how U.S. and British spy agencies had tapped into information from cables carrying the world's phone and Internet traffic.

This Salon article, headlined "Trump's new comments about Edward Snowden put pressure on Democrats to support a pardon," highlights that support for Snowden has often come from progressive quarters:

The ACLU ... restated its support for the whistleblower in the wake of latest comments from Trump, noting in a late Saturday tweet that "Snowden blew the whistle on illegal government activity kept secret for years, sparking a global debate about the proper limits of government surveillance."

"We've said it before and we'll say it again," the group added. "Snowden is a patriot and should be pardoned."

In a Saturday tweet, digital rights activist Evan Greer singled out progressive lawmakers including "Squad" members Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and said they should help "lead their party right now by publicly calling to #PardonSnowden" and protect whistleblowers.

And some members of the GOP are not at all keen on the idea, as highlighted by this Hill article headlined "Cheney calls pardoning Snowden 'unconscionable' after Trump says he's considering it":

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) said on Sunday that pardoning former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden “would be unconscionable” after President Trump said he was considering the idea at a recent press conference. <P.“Edward Snowden is a traitor. He is responsible for the largest and most damaging release of classified info in US history. He handed over US secrets to Russian and Chinese intelligence putting our troops and our nation at risk,” Cheney, the No. 3 Republican in the House, tweeted on Sunday afternoon, adding; “Pardoning him would be unconscionable.”