Howell digs deeper, questioning how the UK government even knows which files Snowden took — and questioning if the UK government has been able to decipher that as well. Harper, again, pushes it aside, saying he has no idea and they avoided such tricky questions altogether:
Again, that’s not something we’re clear on. So, we don’t go into that level of detail in the story.
It’s then that he makes the “we just publish what we believe to be the position of the British government” claim. Howell then points to one of the many contradictions in the story: the idea that Russia/China hacked into the Snowden files… and the claim that they were just handed over. And again, Harper pleads ignorance. He’s just the stenographer.