All very good questions that could end up in a court of law with a Millenium Prize on the line. In a competent world, these are very answerable from logs and considering the news cycle this is creating, should be able to be pulled up and made into a public postmortem in short order. You know, if it's all been above board that is. And if the researchers don't wish for that information to be public knowledge, it can be shared with the researchers promptly for a retraction of their statements lest some libel gets litigated.