FREEDOM OF INFORMATION:

The story left many questions unanswered--most importantly, whether the claims were accurate, but also just what the claims were; CNN said it was withholding the contents of the memo because it could not independently verify the allegations.

The second question was answered in short order, when BuzzFeed posted a PDF of the 35-page dossier a little after 6 p.m. Even in their posting, BuzzFeed acknowledged some misgivings about the document, admitting that it was full of unverified claims. "It is not just unconfirmed: It includes some clear errors," the story noted. Verified or not, the claims were highly explosive, and in some cases quite graphic. Because they are not verified, I will not summarize them here, though they can be read at BuzzFeed or in any other number of places.

Other reporting, including from my colleague Rosie Gray, has already begun to poke holes in the assertions contained in the dossier. Trump denied the report on Twitter, writing, "FAKE NEWS - A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!" Now that the documents are in the public domain, the work underway within some news organizations to suss out what is true in the report will likely accelerate.

Sensing that the decision to publish would be controversial, BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith wrote a memo to staff explaining the thinking, and then posted it on Twitter.

"Our presumption is to be transparent in our journalism and to share what we have with our readers. We have always erred on the side of publishing. In this case, the document was in wide circulation at the highest levels of American government and media," Smith wrote. "Publishing this document was not an easy or simple, and people of good will may disagree with our choice. But publishing the dossier reflects how we see the job of reporters in 2017."

Smith alluded to the document's wide circulation, a nod to the fact that many outlets have either acquired or been offered the chance to view it--a group that includes CNN, Politico (whose Ken Vogel said he'd chased the story), and Lawfare. David Corn of Mother Jones also published a story based on information collected by the British intelligence operative in October.

Smith's reasoning is sincere and considered, but the conclusion is highly dubious. Even more perturbing was the reasoning in the published story. "Now BuzzFeed News is publishing the full document so that Americans can make up their own minds about allegations about the president-elect that have circulated at the highest levels of the US government," the story stated.

Second, while unproven, the allegations are being taken quite seriously. The President and President-elect do not get briefed on material that the intelligence community does not believe to be at least of some credibility. The individual who generated them is apparently a person whose work intelligence professionals take seriously. And at a personal level, we can attest that we have had a lot of conversations with a lot of different people about the material in this document. While nobody has confirmed any of the allegations, both inside government and in the press, it is clear to us that they are the subject of serious attention.

Third, precisely because it is being taken seriously, it is--despite being unproven and, in public anyway, undiscussed--pervasively affecting the broader discussion of Russian hacking of the election. CNN reported that Senator John McCain personally delivered a copy of the document to FBI Director James Comey on December 9th. Consider McCain's comments about the gravity of the Russian hacking episode at last week's Armed Services Committee hearing in light of that fact. Likewise, consider Senator Ron Wyden's questioning of Comey at today's Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, in which Wyden pushed the FBI Director to release a declassified assessment before January 20th regarding contact between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. (Comey refused to comment on an ongoing investigation.)

So while people are being delicate about discussing wholly unproven allegations, the document is at the front of everyone's minds as they ponder the question: Why is Trump so insistent about vindicating Russia from the hacking charges that everyone else seems to accept?

Fourth, it is significant that the document contains highly specific allegations, many of which are the kind of facts it should be possible to prove or disprove. 

There's so much to digest in the leaked intelligence report on Donald Trump's connections to Vladimir Putin and Russia that I feel like I'm drinking from a firehouse. I want to just throw one quick thing at you. I noticed the following excerpt about an alleged meeting in Prague between Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen and Russian operatives that was supposed to have occurred in late August or possibly the first week in September.

I was intrigued at the idea that Putin might utilize a member of the Duma to provide plausible deniability about official communications with the Trump campaign, so I looked to see what I could find about Konstantin Kosachev and whether he was active in talking up Trump and talking down Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Amazingly, I found a TASS article published just yesterday where Kosachev was quite vocally trashing Obama and crowing about the demise of the United States as a global leader and "winner" of the Cold War.

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