The tax returns were obtained from a credible source, meaning that the documents were almost certainly authentic. Meanwhile, the NY Post has made no effort to verify the authenticity of the hacked material, and it is well known that the GRU will mix false documents when they release hacked material to try and amplify the impact.

Also, NYTimes did not disclose any PII in their articles about Trumps taxes. The NY Post couldn't even be bothered to scrub that out.

Furthermore, it has been widely reported that Giuliani was being targeted by the GRU to launder disinformation[1]. This article is from December 2019[2]. Here is a quote from the article:

"Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) suggested over the weekend that any evidence presented by Giuliani should be scrubbed for possible Russian propaganda..."

So there you go. A republican senator, on record. Anyone who has been paying attention was expecting Giuliani to try and stir up an October surprise, and it was widely known that he was probably going to be laundering GRU disinformation.

[1] https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/521328-intellig... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/12/30/giulianis...

This is non-responsive to whether the documents were hacked or not.

The tax returns were absolutely hacked. There is no question that those documents were not legitimately obtained.

No one knows if they were hacked or not, that is the problem. But the cover story is so flimsy caution is warranted in this case. If it turns out the flimsy cover story was true, and if the NY Post removes PII from their story, then twitter will lift the ban. It is not that complicated.

RE: Tax, the NY Times, which has a long history of credible investigative journalism, has stated that their source had legal access to the documents. They were not obtained by their source via a hack. The source most likely did not have permission to share the documents, but the practice of using anonymous, credible sources has a long history in journalism and is widely accepted as ethical. And the practice of laundering RSU disinformation is generally looked down on. And the NY Post has failed to prove that they aren't laundering RSU disinformation.