Edit: A lot of people say, that GWM needs a melee weapon attack, but they miss Jesses point: While GWM requires a melee attack with a heavy weapon, Sharpshooters only criteria is an attack with a ranged weapon (not a ranged weapon attack). Jesse bases his claim on the fact, that a crossbow is still a ranged weapon, even if used as an improvised weapon for melee combat. That’s why it deals 1d4(!)+20 damage. (It works with any ranged, heavy weapon btw., so Longbow qualifies too.) Of course Jesse is playing the devils advocate here and of course, no somewhat sane Walter will allow this in any campaign ever, as it’s obviously not the intention behind these feats. But you could read it that way and that’s Jesses (paperthin) point. Besides: he finds the image of a barbarian running around recklessly smashing a crossbow over everyone’s head to just be hilarious.
My take on why this doesn’t work RAW is there’s a time that states “specific beats general”
When you use a crossbow as a melee weapon, it specifically belongs an improvised melee weapon for the attack, which trumps the general rule that a crossbow is ranged weapon.
I would even go so far as to say that means it doesn’t qualify for GWM either.