Should the media publish the leaked Trump documents?

This is the opinion of an individual journalist and does not necessarily reflect the views of others in the organization.

Politico announced on Saturday that it had obtained internal Trump campaign documents from an unknown source. The campaign later said it had been hacked and blamed Iran.

As with everything that comes from the former president and his campaign team, all statements should be viewed with a grain of salt.

However, this story came shortly after Microsoft released a threat assessment on Friday saying Russia, Iran and China were trying to influence the election.

“Iranian actors have recently laid the groundwork for influence operations targeting U.S. audiences and potentially attempting to influence the 2024 U.S. presidential election,” the document said. “Iran's operations were notable and differed from Russian campaigns in that they occurred later in the election season and used cyberattacks aimed at voting behavior rather than voter influence. Recent activity suggests that the Iranian regime – along with the Kremlin – may be equally involved in the 2024 election.”

When Politico When asked how they got the documents, they replied: “I suggest you do not be curious about where I got them. Any answer to that question would compromise me and you would also be legally prevented from publishing them.”

That raises the question of whether the news outlet (and others who would surely receive that information) should publish the material if its source cannot be determined. It includes a dossier on Trump's vice presidential nominee, JD Vance, compiled before his nomination.

This journalist doesn't believe it.

Around this point in the 2000 presidential campaign, someone leaked a videotape and documents about George W. Bush's debate preparation to an Al Gore confidant. After contacting a lawyer, the recipient turned the information over to the FBI.

That was the right thing to do.

In 2016, Donald Trump asked Russia to find Hillary Clinton's “missing emails.” Hours later, the Kremlin launched a hacker attack on the Democratic presidential candidate and her entourage.

Ultimately, Russia used (or colluded with) WikiLeaks to break this information into small pieces rather than releasing it all at once. This suggests that both the Kremlin and the “transparency organization” wanted this to remain a story for as long as possible. As a result, the media dutifully reported on the documents ad nauseam, giving Trump (whose campaign had also been looking for “dirty” material on Clinton from Russia) an important advantage.

Fake news reports, a complete fabrication, that I am concerned about my wonderful son Donald's meeting at Trump Tower. This was a meeting to obtain information on an opponent, completely legal and common practice in politics – and it led to nothing. I knew nothing about it!

– Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 5 August 2018

This was the wrong approach for everyone involved.

Elections should be decided by the American people. There is already too much money from corporations and billionaires involved, and social media companies have too much influence over what voters see.

Publishing this information without knowing its origin would only lead to further hacking attacks and give foreign governments an even greater incentive to do so.

The situation would be different if the documents had come to light as part of an investigative research project or if at least the source had been known to the journalists.

This would prove their authenticity, but that is not the case here.

Therefore, journalists who receive this information should not publish it or use it for further reporting unless the material indicates that a crime has been committed.

In other words, if Trump's own opposition research team stumbled upon an unpublished fact about Vance, the reporters who have access to those documents should not be guided by that information.

There may be Democrats who believe that a reversal is only appropriate and that it would be balancing justice if Trump himself were to become the victim of a hacker attack after having already benefited from one eight years ago.

But that's not how principles work.