The Guardian, the Intercept, one of those Glen Greenwald properties published several months ago a purported signed Kremlin document ordering FSB interference in the 2016 election. Corroborating info we already knew or suspected to a reasonable certainty, coming from who it did and how it looked, it seemed the real thing.
But no one else picked it up.
Then there were skeptical questions. Was there ever really going to be an order reduced to writing and actually signed by Vladimir Putin? Was there anything really new in the substance reported?
Then there was the maladroit tease. The document referred to an appendix that contained all the dirt on Trump but which the document authors deemed too sensitive to include with the document.
It was a little too much. Finally, a WaPo reporter mentioned those question marks and noted that the Greenwald properties reporter was the same guy who had been duped into publishing a previous false story.
L'affaire Putin Misinformed reminded me of that election interference story. Although for at most a couple of hours it was the banner lede in the Times, there was scant other mention of it and what there was for the most part merely cited to or quoted from the Times article. Then no later than 5:55 p.m. the banner was removed.
The immediate sources, John Kirby and Kate Bedingfield are immaculate. But neither of them was the original source. The original source was a declassified document. It seems likely that reporters were given an actual copy of the document but even that is unclear. There was no mention in the reporting when the document was originally composed and, of course, we don't know who the spook was who composed the document or his source or sources.
Then there was the similar but not exact reporting by WaPo and similar but not exact statements by GCHQ.
What was reported?
Putin isolated. Knew that.
The house arrest of Putin's intel chief and deputy. Knew that.
The two-week disappearance of Sergei Shoigu, the Defense Minister, check. That there was "tension" between these two bosom buddies, we could kinda figure that one out our ownselves.
The use of conscripts without Putin's knowledge was reported by the Kremlin in early March.
Putin knew that he had not yet been invited by his Ukrainian hosts to a celebratory fete on their liberation, so he knew that this was maybe taking a little longer than he had expected.
One new thing only did we learn: that Putin is presently still being misinformed.
That led to skeptical questions: Like, how is that even conceivable? Presumably Putin has a TV and can, unlike his prisoner-citizens, turn on the BBC or CNN. Tools of the enemy they may be but even the most ardent opponent (harumm!) of dezinformatsiva might want to take a gander for five minutes or until the next commercial break and during said commercial break might ask Sergei or the other Sergei, the house-arrested Sergei, perhaps his replacement, "How's tricks?"
By mid-evening last night I was questioning the original source, Our Man in the Kremlin. Was he planting false information to make his boss, probably Shoigu, look good? And late last night I actually had the thought, "Was this story an attempt by Putin loyalists in the Kremlin to root out the mole?" You give your main suspect, and only him, one new piece of information. He then passes it on to our spook who forwards it to the Pentagon which declassifies it for Kirby and Bedingfield to make public and voila! You've got your mole.
The declassified report cannot be disproved any more than it can be proved. The New York Times wrote the conclusive addendum to this story last night,
It was not clear whether the release of the declassified intelligence was intended to sow anxiety within Mr. Putin’s circle as part of a broader information battle between the United States and Russia over Ukraine...Nor was it clear if the intelligence was accurate.
That's as clear as it's gonna get.
