Right. The Flynn leak is unfortunately just a rumor, and some partisans are trying to amplify it while others are trying to diminish it.

Since a full transcript/recording obviously exists, the leaker seemingly felt that his/her political aims would not be strengthened if he/she released the actual source material.

There are many less sinister explanations, and one should generally go for them before resorting to conspiracies:

– The leaker had listened to discussions, but did not see/have the actual transcripts

– Leaking documents carries much stiffer penalties

– Leaking documents feels worse than talking about them in general terms

– Copies are strictly limited and can only be seen in a guarded document room

- Documents may contain hidden markers to identify leakers

...

If the journalists reporting this aren't even seeing snippets of the conversations that's even worse. Intel agencies for decades have been known to manipulate the press.

Right. If there is a deep Russian conspiracy to undermine government and Trump and many on his team are compromised, surely a leaker would feel confident that he/she would be vindicated for having helped inform the public about it (especially due to the strongly partisan support for anything that would harm Trump's presidency).

> (especially due to the strongly partisan support for anything that would harm Trump's presidency).

If they had the evidence that trump was "being blackmailed by putin" or actively working with Russia to undermine the DNC, how would his presidency survive impeachment?

Snowden did what he did knowing he wasn't going to topple Obama, if you had such explosive information that would protect the republic it just seems a bit much that they would only just relay bits and pieces of information via verbal communication.

Exactly. Cherry-picking what portion to leak can, intentionally or not, result in a narrative orthogonal to the truth.

Indeed; Julian Assange recently demonstrated this, to great effect.

Yep.

I support the leaks. I think that leaking is often a principled action and that far from being a sign of compromised institutions, it arguably is an institution -- the ultimate institution is individual judgment of conscience about things that are in the public interest, including relevant knowledge about the actions of those in office.

But I think detail and documentation serves the conversation better.

Mitigating factor -- sometimes detail gives away the source. It's not a perfect world.