“How America took out the Nord Stream pipeline”

It's a great story, but it's all unsourced and could be a decent Tom Clancy story at best. You could probably write a similar one with Russia or German agents as the key players and be just as convincing.

The only anchor in reality appears to be Biden suggesting that they knew how to take it out which seems like a pretty weak place to build a large story.

What I find particularly odd is that this entire thing appears to be based on a single, unnamed source "with direct knowledge of the operational planning".

It's not unsourced, the source is being kept private. That may not seem like a meaningful difference but there is a difference. And that difference is the reason Seymour Hersh's reputation is relevant.

> Seymour Hersh's reputation

Is this satire or what? His reputation is "as a nutcase" nowadays.

Most reputable editors, when given a secret-sources story, either reject it outright, or say "OK, tell me their names and let me talk to them."

If you're Hersh, maybe you get away with saying, "trust me."