It was a leak of no importance (more summaries and assessments i.e. editorial) that claimed Russiagate stuff was true. The most important part of the leak was the identity of the woman who leaked it, who was a Bernie supporter with idiosyncratic politics. The goal was to bring the Bernie wing of the Democrats into the anti-Russian buildup by putting it into the mouth of a quirky left-leaning woman of pretty impeccable character (as far as that can be true for someone who works in US intelligence.) I absolutely guarantee that she wasn't in on it, they just played to her urge to feel heroic.

Richard Esposito (https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/news/pr0218/nypd-executive-app...) was part of handling her leak on the other side (The Intercept is lousy with spooks), so they had whatever help they needed for their parallel construction, which they would have no obligation to fully explain, anyway. The trial went perfectly because Omidyar was paying her lawyers, so spies on both sides.

-----

edit: the growing cynic consensus is that this leak is fake, too. The fact that there were "crudely altered" casualty figures and that point was repeated multiple times is bizarre. Why would Russians be altering information that they're meant to use? If it were meant for propaganda purposes, why would it be crude?

And for the papers: why were they immediately convinced of the authenticity of these "crudely altered" documents when past leaked documents that had no indication of falsehood and were easy to authenticate were held in question for months or years after discovery by these same outlets?