eliminary consideration to the source, and to the degree, if any, that questions about the manner in which the documents were procured diminish their reliability.
Understandably, the Clinton camp has stressed the questionable nature of WikiLeaks’s operations. That is what lawyers tend to do when documents show up that cast their clients (and themselves) in an unflattering light. There is some persuasive force to these complaints. They are too convenient, though. When it came to top-secret information stolen and leaked by Edward Snowden, the reaction on the left and among many libertarians was that the documents appeared authentic and thus it was proper — essential, in fact — to base reporting and arguments on them. Concerns that what Snowden had done was illegal and treasonous, and that the leaks immensely damaged national security, were said to be trivial compared to the imperative of exposing supposedly monstrous government surveillance activities. Many to this day regard Snowden as a hero.
As I am often constrained to observe, our progressive politics today are not about right and wrong but about us and them — logic is out, “narrative” is in. So we shouldn’t go looking for the Left to take consistent positions. If theft and leaks help The Cause, what matters is the substance of the documents; if they hurt, then it’s time to start worrying about authenticity, moral hazard, etc.
But let’s try to sort out right and wrong, even if the answers are unsatisfying.
The basic rule applied in American courts is that even an atrocious source can produce authentic, reliable evidence. The more atrocious the source, though, the higher the burden to establish authenticity and reliability (there are salient differences between the latter two things, which we’ll get to presently). This is easier to grasp with documents than testimony: It can be very hard (often impossible) to establish the trustworthiness of testimony from a dubious source, while the authenticity of a document can often be verified pretty easily. If, upon examination, the document appears to be what it is represented to be, and especially if its authenticity is not refuted by those with a reason to refute it, it is generally admitted into evidence for the jury’s consideration. But how much the jury should rely on the document’s contents (the “weight” to be given them) depends on how much reason there is to suspect the document is fraudulent or misleadingly incomplete.