I also thought the “physically in Eastern Europe” assumption was odd.

Based on The Nation article, it seems Lawrence believed the leak theory — or at least was convinced the hacking theory was wrong — before he saw evidence supporting it. With the VIPS faction accepting Forensicator’s analysis, Lawrence had what he needed to declare that “hard science” proved it couldn’t be a hack.

Your compression point makes sense. It doesn’t mean that’s definitely what happened, but it’s plausible given what we know. That’s yet another reason Lawrence’s no-doubt-about-it declaration is, at the very least, grossly overstated.

But if he critically evaluated the evidence, it would have been a much different article.