I would say he's definitely a psyop, and in addition to whatever other material arguments you may find, here's the bizarre tell: his glasses. Look very closely at the glasses he wore during all those early interviews. You'll see that the left-side nose pad is missing. IDK if you've ever had one of the pads break on your glasses, but you just can't stand it very long. Ed never gets it fixed.

It gets even more bizarre when he gets to Russia. Rather than getting new glasses, he's pictured in casual snapshots without glasses at all. Did he get contacts? Nope, because in subsequent interviews he's back with the same broken glasses.

I've never thought about it much, but my money would be that he's a Russian intelligence asset. They have always taken Intelligence very seriously and have had the best. Plus, he seems very comfortable in Russia, when you think they would lean on him for intel as the price for staying. And why doesn't the US call him out? What, and admit that he penetrated both the CIA and the NSA? No way.