Where does transparency meet irresponsibility? Right at the line that BuzzFeed’s editor Ben Smith approached Tuesday and decided to step over in the name of serving citizens’ best interests. 
 
 With caveats and explanations aplenty, Smith published a 35-page “dossier” — actually just a bunch of scurrilous allegations dressed up as an intelligence report meant to damage Donald Trump. 
 
 Smith said he did so because his, and BuzzFeed’s, preference and philosophy is, essentially, “When in doubt, publish.” But at many other news organizations, the rule is caution: “When in doubt, leave it out.” 
 
 In this case, the doubt should have prevailed. News organizations and government officials have known for months that this information, if it can be called that, existed. But despite many attempts, the claims about Trump’s behavior and relationships in Russia could not be verified. 
 
 Thus, major newspapers and magazines sat on them. In October, the Washington bureau chief of Mother Jones, David Corn, wrote a story based on the file but stopped well short of publishing the specifics. 
 
 (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post) 
 
 Why? Because he couldn’t verify them. 
 
 So what changed and blew this out into the public eye? Not just BuzzFeed’s data dump, but a series of events. Intelligence agencies summarized the “dossier” and included it in material given to Trump and President Obama. 
 
 CNN published a story Tuesday saying that much. And with the door cracked open, BuzzFeed pushed through. In doing so, the digital behemoth — which for years has balanced a tension between its start as a lighthearted click factory and, under Smith and a serious news team, a purveyor of investigative journalism and breaking news — set off a fierce debate. 
 
 “Publishing this dossier reflects how we see the job of reporters in 2017,” Smith wrote. In other words, readers are grown-ups and deserve to be treated as such, not paternalistically protected from information that might upset them. True enough, but it avoids the larger point: It’s a bad idea, and always has been, to publish unverified smears. 
 
 The decision certainly resulted in clicks. It also brought approval and disapproval, in some cases from unexpected quarters. 
 
 Richard Tofel, president of ProPublica, praised the decision: “Kudos to @buzzfeedben and his team for publishing the dossier. Once CNN story out, citizens should have evidence to consider for themselves.” 
 
 Journalist Michael Tracey noted that while WikiLeaks had been “relentlessly attacked” for publishing verified, authentic information, BuzzFeed was being “cheered for publishing what appears to be a total sham.” 
 
 (The Washington Post) 
 
 And in the New York Post, columnist and longtime magazine editor John Podhoretz made a solid point: “In my experience, there is no source of whom you need to be more skeptical, and whose information you need to verify to the letter before you can even begin to think of publishing it, than an ‘intelligence’ source.” 
 
 Once BuzzFeed published, of course, the dam burst. Slate followed, publishing the documents itself, and anyone in the world had access with a few keystrokes. 
 
 Trump — who gave his first news conference Wednesday — immediately took to Twitter to brand the information “fake news” and to blame a political witch hunt. The publication of the documents does, indeed, give fuel to the notion that the press is out to get him. 
 
 Most mainstream outlets, including The Washington Post, even now are staying away from the specifics of the report, said to be prepared by a former British intelligence official. Those media organizations don’t get much credit these days for skepticism and editorial judgment, but for the most part, they have shown it here. 
 
 I don’t fault BuzzFeed for lack of skepticism here. Smith was clear with readers that the information he was publishing couldn’t be verified and, indeed, there was no reason to believe that much of it was true. What I fault him for was plunging down a slippery ethical slope from which there is no return. 
 
 In an era when trust in the media is already in the gutter, this does absolutely nothing to help. But even that isn’t the core point, which is far simpler: 
 
 It’s never been acceptable to publish rumor and innuendo. And none of the circumstances surrounding this episode — not CNN’s story, not Trump’s dubious history with Russia, not the fact that the intelligence community made a report on it — should change that ethical rule. 
 
 For more by Margaret Sullivan, visit wapo.st/sullivan. ||||| 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 under way 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 call, 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. 
 
 That raises a range of potential objections. First, it unfairly forces a public figure—Trump, in this case—to respond to a set of allegations that might or might not be entirely scurrilous; the reporters, by their own admission, do not know. Second, the appeal to “transparency” notwithstanding, this represents an abdication of the basic responsibility of journalism. The reporter’s job is not to simply dump as much information as possible into the public domain, though that can at times be useful too, as some of WikiLeaks’ revelations have shown. It is to gather information, sift through it, and determine what is true and what is not. The point of a professional journalist corps is to have people whose job it is to do that work on behalf of society, and who can cultivate sources and expertise to help them adjudicate it. A pluralistic press corps is necessary to avoid monolithic thinking among reporters, but transparent transmission of misinformation is no more helpful or clarifying than no information at all. ||||| Normally, Twitter loses its mind over something President-elect Donald Trump has tweeted. This evening, it’s losing its mind over an unverified, leaked report that supposedly details the ways in which Russia has been alternately teaming up with Trump and working to collect compromising information about him. The allegations contained in it are startling. Among them: Trump has been filmed with Russian prostitutes, knew about Russian hacking, and changed his policy on the Ukraine for Russia, and on and on. 
 
 US intelligence agencies and multiple journalists haven’t verified these claims to a sufficient degree that they feel comfortable publishing them. And yet here we are, reading them anyway. And making jokes about golden showers on Twitter related to our next president. What is even going on here? 
 
 Let’s start with what has taken this report out of the realm of gossip and allegation amongst in-the-know reporters and into your Twitter feed. According to CNN, both Trump and President Obama were given a briefing that included a synopsis of this larger, 35-page report. The ostensible reason for the two-page synopsis that they received was “to make the President-elect aware that such allegations involving him are circulating among intelligence agencies, senior members of Congress and other government officials in Washington,” according to CNN. The New York Times reports that “Intelligence officials were concerned that the information would leak before they informed Mr. Trump of its existence.” 
 
 In other words: people are talking about it, you should know about it. 
 
 That took the newsworthiness of the report up a level, and so BuzzFeed followed an almost identical logic and published the 35-page report itself. Its justification for doing so, knowing that the allegations contained therein are unverified, is “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.” 
 
 In other words: people are talking about it, you should know about it. 
 
 That reason for publishing is often not only enough, but more than enough to merit publication (cf. this very article). According to BuzzFeed, “the documents have circulated for months, and acquired a kind of legendary status among journalists, lawmakers, and intelligence officials.” It seems likely that it was going to leak one way or another, so a report that Trump and Obama had been briefed on it was as good a time as any for that to happen. 
 
 BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith tweeted out an email he sent to his staff detailing why BuzzFeed chose to publish the document: 
 
 Here's the note I sent to @buzzfeednews staff this evening pic.twitter.com/OcAloWzVzb — Ben Smith (@BuzzFeedBen) January 11, 2017 
 
 Smith’s take here is more nuanced than simply “people are talking about it.” He’s right that it seems clear that this report is behind some of the more serious allegations that have been thrown around by people at the highest levels of US government. Smith’s line of reasoning is defensible — but not every reporter agrees. 
 
 The report itself was apparently compiled by a former British intelligence agent “whose past work US intelligence officials consider credible,” CNN says. We know only that the report is being taken seriously by serious people. But the work of corroborating the allegations in it hasn’t been finished yet, so other journalists who had seen it chose not to publish it. 
 
 1. For those asking, I didn't publish the full memos from the intelligence operative because I could not confirm the allegations. — David Corn (@DavidCornDC) January 11, 2017 
 
 But now that it’s out there, published as a PDF with yellow highlights from an unknown reader, it’s out there. I myself tweeted out one of the most explosive allegations (while also noting one of the most salacious parts), and my Twitter notifications are blowing up. The report seems custom-designed to spread on Twitter. It practically begs you to screencap and Tweet whatever part outrages you the most (or makes you titter the most). 
 
 These soundbites have been weaponized by Twitter, made all the more powerful because they appeal to the deepest desires and fears of Trump’s critics. After months — and years — of watching damning leaks about Hillary Clinton, finally there’s a leak for the other side to share and spread, provenance be damned. 
 
 FAKE NEWS - A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2017 
 
 It’s not “Fake News,” as Donald Trump just declared on Twitter, because the real news here is that Trump himself was briefed on the contents of this report. It’s unverified news, which is an entirely different thing that requires that you pay attention to where it came from, why, and how. 
 
 It’s not necessarily bad that this report is out there — but we should keep in mind that lots of people have been reading and trying to verify these claims for months now. But as it spreads on Twitter, screenshot by gleefully outraged screenshot, it’s going to be stripped of nuance and context. 
 
 But we’ll still share and reply and retweet and joke. Because people are talking about it, and that’s the way we talk now. ||||| Drew Angerer/Getty Images 
 
 BuzzFeed on Tuesday published a 35-page dossier comprising a series of memos, containing intelligence reportedly gathered by a former British intelligence agent as opposition research, about alleged ties between President-elect Donald Trump and Russia. It included claims that Russian authorities have been “cultivating and supporting” Trump for “at least five years” and obtained compromising material on Trump that included video of “perverted” sex acts in a Moscow hotel. 
 
 Will Oremus Will Oremus is Slate’s senior technology writer. Email him at will.oremus@slate.com or follow him on Twitter. 
 
 The dossier was not new. BuzzFeed and multiple other news organizations had obtained it well before Tuesday and had been investigating its various claims. Mother Jones wrote about it prior to the election, on Oct. 31, and published a handful of quotes from it. Key figures in Congress had also seen it and even publicly alluded to it, and the Guardian reported on Tuesday that Sen. John McCain had passed it to FBI Director James Comey last month. But no one had published its entire, stunning contents before Tuesday—partly because, as my colleague Joshua Keating put it, “nothing in the memos has been confirmed, and even their provenance is murky.” 
 
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 BuzzFeed posted the dossier in full, prefacing it with a series of caveats about its veracity and updating it shortly afterward with a vehement denial from Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen, about whom the memo makes several claims. Why did the site opt to publish what so many others had opted not to? And why now, in particular? The answers point to a media industry that still takes its “gatekeeping” functions more seriously than it sometimes gets credit for—even if it doesn’t always perform them. 
 
 BuzzFeed’s editor, Ben Smith, explained the decision in a memo to his staff, which he subsequently provided to me and then published on Twitter: 
 
 Here's the note I sent to @buzzfeednews staff this evening pic.twitter.com/OcAloWzVzb — Ben Smith (@BuzzFeedBen) January 11, 2017 
 
 Smith didn’t address why BuzzFeed waited until now to publish the document, and he declined to comment further for this article. But the move came almost immediately after CNN reported Tuesday that top U.S. intelligence officials had shown Trump and President Obama a two-page synopsis of the dossier. The synopsis was presented as an unofficial appendage to the classified security briefings they gave Obama and Trump about Russian interference in the presidential election, CNN reported. Sources also told CNN that the “Gang of Eight” Congressional leaders had been provided a synopsis of the dossier as well. 
 
 That top U.S. intelligence officials saw fit to brief Trump and Obama on the dossier would seem to indicate that they took the claims at least somewhat seriously, even though they’ve been unable to verify them and, as BuzzFeed noted, the memos contain some “clear errors.” But CNN’s report suggests that the briefing was partly just about making Trump aware that the dossier existed and was circulating at the highest levels of the U.S. government. 
 
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 CNN declined to disclose the substance of the claims, writing, “At this point, CNN is not reporting on details of the memos, as it has not independently corroborated the specific allegations.” Smith and BuzzFeed saw it differently. It’s possible that if they hadn’t published it Tuesday night, someone else would have. 
 
 (Slate, for its part, followed BuzzFeed’s lead and published the dossier later Tuesday as part of Keating’s blog post about it. Asked why Slate ran it, Editor in Chief Julia Turner told me, “The memos BuzzFeed published today are newsworthy documents, and BuzzFeed’s decision to publish was news too. In covering BuzzFeed’s scoop and its implications, we described the allegations in the memos and the questions about their veracity; we thought it served our readers best to republish the documents as well so readers could evaluate the memos for themselves.”) 
 
 BuzzFeed was acting in a tradition in which the notion of media as privileged gatekeeper of information is viewed with disdain. 
 
 What we have, with the memo, is a set of explosive charges against the president-elect that no one so far has been able to either verify or fully debunk. What’s remarkable, in a time of social media, blogs, polarized politics, hacks, and leaks, is that the dossier stayed private for so long, even as the Clinton campaign and Democrats saw their private communications splashed across the news. No doubt that was due at least in part to the claims’ sensational nature and the enormous impact they could have, if verified or even just widely believed. 
 
 David Corn, the Mother Jones journalist who wrote the magazine's comparatively circumspect Oct. 31 report on the allegations, tweeted Tuesday night that he did not publish the full memos at the time because he could not verify their allegations. For Corn—and for journalist Julia Ioffe, who tweeted that she was “approached with this story” but turned it down because it was “impossible to verify”—that call came down to ethics and standard operating procedure. Clearly the internet has not turned journalism into a shameless, traffic-thirsty free-for-all. 
 
 1. For those asking, I didn't publish the full memos from the intelligence operative because I could not confirm the allegations. — David Corn (@DavidCornDC) January 11, 2017 
 
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 Yet the dossier did come out eventually, and it’s interesting to reflect on how and why it happened—and whether it was inevitable. It happened via a series of steps by various actors, each of whom relied on the actions of those before them to justify their own decisions. BuzzFeed presumably published it in part because CNN was reporting on it. CNN was reporting on it because intelligence officials had briefed Trump on it. Intelligence officials briefed Trump on it because senior congressional leaders were passing it around. Senior congressional leaders may have been passing it around in part because Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid alluded to it in a letter blasting FBI Director James Comey for publicizing information harmful to Hillary Clinton but not publicizing the dirt on Trump. Each act lowered the bar for those who followed to act on information that they knew might or might not be true. 
 
 Whether BuzzFeed was right or wrong to publish the memo—and whether it should have presented it with more critical commentary or context—is a question that will be debated in future classes on journalism ethics. For now I’ll just point out that, while Smith has at times proudly positioned BuzzFeed as a member of the “mainstream media,” he was acting here in a different tradition. It was the tradition of internet media and blogs—one pioneered by Matt Drudge, who famously broke the Monica Lewinsky scandal by reporting that Newsweek was sitting on it, and by the now-defunct Gawker. It’s a tradition in which the notion of media as privileged gatekeeper of information is viewed with disdain. It’s one in which sensitive and embarrassing information about public figures is readily disclosed, ostensibly out of respect for the public’s intelligence and right to know. It’s also one in which publishers are rewarded for publishing such bombshells, not with prestigious industry award, but with notoriety, page views, and social media shares. 
 
 Smith’s defense of his decision evinces an understanding of this tradition and BuzzFeed’s place in it. “We have always erred on the side of publishing,” he writes. There is virtue in this posture among journalists, insofar as it serves as a societal counterweight to the tendency of people in positions of power to suppress information that could embarrass them. The question is just how far you’re willing to err in that direction, and Smith acknowledges that this was a particularly close call. It rings just a tad disingenuous, however, when BuzzFeed claims to have published the documents simply “so that Americans can make up their own minds” about the allegations. If America’s top intelligence agencies, congressional staffs, and investigative journalists—including BuzzFeed’s own decorated investigative team—couldn’t make up their minds about the allegations, how do they expect the average reader to do so? ||||| A dossier making explosive — but unverified — allegations that the Russian government has been “cultivating, supporting and assisting” President-elect Donald Trump for years and gained compromising information about him has been circulating among elected officials, intelligence agents, and journalists for weeks. 
 
 The dossier, which is a collection of memos written over a period of months, includes specific, unverified, and potentially unverifiable allegations of contact between Trump aides and Russian operatives, and graphic claims of sexual acts documented by the Russians. BuzzFeed News reporters in the US and Europe have been investigating various alleged facts in the dossier but have not verified or falsified them. CNN reported Tuesday that a two-page synopsis of the report was given to President Obama and Trump. 
 
 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 document was prepared for political opponents of Trump by a person who is understood to be a former British intelligence agent. It is not just unconfirmed: It includes some clear errors. The report misspells the name of one company, "Alpha Group," throughout. It is Alfa Group. The report says the settlement of Barvikha, outside Moscow, is "reserved for the residences of the top leadership and their close associates." It is not reserved for anyone, and it is also populated by the very wealthy. 
 
 The Trump administration's transition team did not immediately respond to BuzzFeed News' request for comment. However, the president-elect's attorney, Michael Cohen, told Mic that the allegations were absolutely false. 
 
 
 
 "It's so ridiculous on so many levels," he said. "Clearly, the person who created this did so from their imagination or did so hoping that the liberal media would run with this fake story for whatever rationale they might have." 
 
 
 
 And Trump shot back against the reports a short time later on Twitter. ||||| This afternoon, CNN reported that President Barack Obama and President-Elect Donald Trump had been briefed by the intelligence community on the existence of a cache of memos alleging communication between the Trump campaign and Russian officials and the possession by the Russian government of highly compromising material against Trump. The memos were compiled by a former British intelligence officer on behalf of anti-Trump Republicans and, later, Democrats working against Trump in the general election. According to CNN, the intelligence officer’s previous work is credible, but the veracity of the specific allegations set forth in the document have not yet been confirmed. Notably, Mother Jones journalist David Corn reported the week before the election on similar allegations that Trump had been “cultivated” by Russian intelligence, on the basis of a memos produced by “a former senior intelligence officer for a Western country.” A similar report also appeared in Newsweek. 
 
 This cache of memos has been kicking around official Washington for several weeks now. A great many journalists have been feverishly working to document the allegations within it, which are both explosive and quite various: some of them relate to alleged collusion between Trump campaign officials and Russian intelligence, while others relate to personal sexual conduct by Trump himself that supposedly constitutes a rip-roaring KOMPROMAT file. 
 
 If you are finding Lawfare useful in these times, please consider making a contribution to support what we do. 
 
 We have had the document for a couple of weeks and have chosen, as have lots of other publications, not to publish it while the allegations within it remain unproven. In response to CNN’s report, however, Buzzfeed has now released the underlying document itself, which is available here. 
 
 Whether or not its release is defensible in light of the CNN story, it is now important to emphasize several points. 
 
 First, we have no idea if any of these allegations are true. Yes, they are explosive; they are also entirely unsubstantiated, at least to our knowledge, at this stage. For this reason, even now, we are not going to discuss the specific allegations within the document. 
 
 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. This is a document about meetings that either took place or did not take place, stays in hotels that either happened or didn’t, travel that either happened or did not happen. It should be possible to know whether at least some of these allegations are true or false. 
 
 Finally, fifth, it is important to emphasize that this is not a case of the intelligence community leaking sensitive information about an investigative subject out of revenge or any other improper motive. This type of information, referencing sensitive sources and methods and the identities of U.S. persons, is typically treated by the intelligence community with the utmost care. And this material, in fact, does not come from the intelligence community; it comes, rather, from private intelligence documents put together by a company. It is actually not even classified. 
 
 All of which is to say to everyone: slow down, and take a deep breath. We shouldn’t assume either that this is simply a “fake news” episode directed at discrediting Trump or that the dam has now broken and the truth is coming out at last. We don’t know what the reality is here, and the better part of valor is not to get ahead ahead of the facts—a matter on which, incidentally, the press deserves a lot of credit. 
 
 UPDATE: The Guardian reports: 
 
 The Guardian has learned that the FBI applied for a warrant from the foreign intelligence surveillance (Fisa) court over the summer in order to monitor four members of the Trump team suspected of irregular contacts with Russian officials. The Fisa court turned down the application asking FBI counter-intelligence investigators to narrow its focus. According to one report, the FBI was finally granted a warrant in October, but that has not been confirmed, and it is not clear whether any warrant led to a full investigation. 
 
 UPDATE II: Trump just tweeted this: 
 
 FAKE NEWS - A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2017 
 
 Mic reports that Michael Cohen, Trump's special counsel, has denied several allegations contained within the report, some pertaining to Cohen specifically. ||||| Drew Angerer / Getty Images ID: 10302602 
 
 A dossier making explosive — but unverified — allegations that the Russian government has been “cultivating, supporting and assisting” President-elect Donald Trump for years and gained compromising information about him has been circulating among elected officials, intelligence agents, and journalists for weeks. 
 
 The dossier, which is a collection of memos written over a period of months, includes specific, unverified, and potentially unverifiable allegations of contact between Trump aides and Russian operatives, and graphic claims of sexual acts documented by the Russians. BuzzFeed News reporters in the US and Europe have been investigating various alleged facts in the dossier but have not verified or falsified them. CNN reported Tuesday that a two-page synopsis of the report was given to President Obama and Trump. 
 
 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 document was prepared for political opponents of Trump by a person who is understood to be a former British intelligence agent. It is not just unconfirmed: It includes some clear errors. The report misspells the name of one company, “Alpha Group,” throughout. It is Alfa Group. The report says the settlement of Barvikha, outside Moscow, is “reserved for the residences of the top leadership and their close associates.” It is not reserved for anyone, and it is also populated by the very wealthy. 
 
 The Trump administration’s transition team did not immediately respond to BuzzFeed News’ request for comment. However, the president-elect’s attorney, Michael Cohen, told Mic that the allegations were absolutely false. 
 
 
 
 “It’s so ridiculous on so many levels,” he said. “Clearly, the person who created this did so from their imagination or did so hoping that the liberal media would run with this fake story for whatever rationale they might have.” 
 
 
 
 And Trump shot back against the reports a short time later on Twitter. 
 
 FAKE NEWS - A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) ID: 10302576 
 
 His former campaign manager and current senior White House adviser, Kellyanne Conway, also denied the claims during an appearance on Late Night With Seth Meyers, adding that “nothing has been confirmed.” She also said Trump was “not aware” of any briefing on the matter. 
 
 The documents have circulated for months and acquired a kind of legendary status among journalists, lawmakers, and intelligence officials who have seen them. Mother Jones writer David Corn referred to the documents in a late October column. 
 
 Harry Reid spokesman Adam Jentleson tweeted Tuesday that the former Senate Democratic leader had seen the documents before writing a public letter to FBI Director James Comey about Trump’s ties to Russia. And CNN reported Tuesday that Arizona Republican John McCain gave a “full copy” of the memos to Comey on Dec. 9, but that the FBI already had copies of many of the memos. 
 
 If you have tips related to this story, write us at trumpstories@buzzfeed.com. To send us information confidentially, go here. 
 
 Read the report here:
– "The documents have circulated for months and acquired a kind of legendary status among journalists, lawmakers, and intelligence officials who have seen them." So writes BuzzFeed in introducing the 35-page dossier it published Tuesday night that alleges Russia has compromising information, both financial and personal, on President-elect Donald Trump. Their publication raises some big questions about journalistic ethics: Why did BuzzFeed decide to pull the trigger on publishing in full (in its words) "unverified, and potentially unverifiable allegations"? Why now? Why hadn't other outlets (Mother Jones did quote from it in October)? Some perspective: From the horse's mouth: BuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith in an email explains what went into the decision to publish the dossier, concluding, the move "reflects how we see the job of reporters in 2017." At Slate, Will Oremus takes a positional view. Though he says Smith places BuzzFeed within the mainstream media, "he was acting here in a different tradition": that born of the Internet and blogs "in which sensitive and embarrassing information about public figures is readily disclosed" under a public-has-a-right-to-know rallying cry. At the Atlantic, David A. Graham sees that cry as "an abdication of the basic responsibility of journalism." Heaping information into the public's lap is not the reporter's job, he writes. "It is to gather information, sift through it, and determine what is true and what is not." Here, for instance, is New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet's explanation of its own decision: "We, like others, investigated the allegations and haven't corroborated them, and we felt we're not in the business of publishing things we can’t stand by." As for that corroboration, Lawfare makes this point: "This is a document about meetings that either took place or did not take place, stays in hotels that either happened or didn’t, travel that either happened or did not happen. It should be possible to know whether at least some of these allegations are true or false." ProPublica President Richard Tofel suggests the publication an hour prior to BuzzFeed's dump of a CNN story that reported Trump and President Obama had received a two-page summary of the reports last week, changes the game. He tweeted BuzzFeed "kudos ... Once CNN story out, citizens should have evidence to consider for themselves." Hogwash, writes Margaret Sullivan at the Washington Post. "It’s never been acceptable to publish rumor and innuendo. And none of the circumstances surrounding this episode—not CNN’s story, not Trump’s dubious history with Russia, not the fact that the intelligence community made a report on it—should change that ethical rule."