Eric Holder Still Playing the Fool

U.S. officials offer conflicting accounts of how much they know about Snowden’s situation in Russia.

“It’s an ongoing investigation,” U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said in an interview. “We have done the appropriate things at this stage of the investigation, and we know exactly where Mr. Snowden is.”

[...]

The burst of activity during that period [when Snowden was in Hong Kong] — including the White House meetings, a broad diplomatic scramble and the decision to force a foreign leader’s plane to land — was far more extensive than U.S. officials acknowledged at the time.

President Obama in particular seemed to strike a dismissive pose, saying on June 27 that he was “not going to be scrambling jets to get a 29-year-old hacker.”

[...]

[White House homeland security adviser Lisa] Monaco was convening meetings nearly every day at the White House. Among the participants were the CIA’s head of counterintelligence, FBI Deputy Director Sean Joyce and McFaul, who often took part by videoconference in sessions that got underway well after midnight in Moscow.

[...]

Then-FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III made more than half a dozen direct appeals to his FSB counterpart, Alexander Bortnikov [to have Snowden turned over to the US government], officials said, all for naught.

[...]

Others said the United States lacks answers to even basic questions about Snowden’s circumstances, including where he lives and — perhaps most important — the role of the Russian security service, the FSB, in his day-to-day life.

Asked whether the United States knows Snowden’s location, a U.S. official regularly briefed on the matter said, “That’s not our understanding.”

The gaps persist despite Snowden’s ability to meet with U.S. journalists in Moscow and make high-profile appearances, including during a call-in show with Russian President Vladi¬mir Putin.

[...]

“The FBI doesn’t have any capability to operate in Moscow without the collaboration of the FSB,” said a former senior U.S. intelligence official who served in the Russian capital.

  WaPo

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.