U.S. officials tried really, really hard to catch Edward …

The Washington Post has a pretty fascinating piece looking at how the FBI, the CIA, the State Department and other agencies spent weeks trying and failing to catch Edward Snowden after he fled to Hong Kong and eventually landed in Russia. As Greg Millers reporting makes clear, the United States kept waiting for Snowden to miscalculate and expose himself to being apprehended, but it never happened.

The best play for us is him landing in a third country, White House homeland security adviser Lisa Monacosaid of the agencies strategy, according to an official who spoke with Miller. We were hoping he was going to be stupid enough to get on some kind of airplane, and then have an ally say: Youre in our airspace. Land.

At one point, the FBI enlisted the help of Snowdens father, who eventually stopped cooperating after he concluded that the U.S. was trying to depict his son as a traitor:

From the outset, the pursuit of Snowden was led by the FBI. Lon Snowden, the fugitives father, said FBI agents descended on his house within hours after a video of his son identifying himself as the source of the NSA leaks appeared on the Web site of the British news outlet the Guardian.

I spoke to them approximately four hours on the 10th of June, Lon Snowden said. Later, the FBI offered to send the elder Snowden to Moscow as part of an effort to deliver a scripted pitch to his son to turn himself in and return home. A former officer in the Coast Guard, Lon Snowden was initially cooperative with the bureau but became angered as his son was depicted by U.S. officials as a traitor.

I came to know that they were not functioning in good faith and turned down the trip, Snowden said.

Snowdens exact location continues to evade security officials, even as he speaks with journalists and make public media appearances:

Others said the United States lacks answers to even basic questions about Snowdens 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 Snowdens location, a U.S. official regularly briefed on the matter said, Thats not our understanding.

The gaps persist despite Snowdens ability tomeet with U.S. journalists in Moscowand make high-profile appearances, including during a call-in show with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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U.S. officials tried really, really hard to catch Edward ...