The Downing Street Memo: Originals Destroyed?

Does this sound familiar to anyone else?

The Associated Press has put typed copies of six recently obtained internal British government documents concerning the lead-up to the war in Iraq on its website which are labeled "secret" or "confidential. The copies were provided by British reporter Michael Smith, who claims he destroyed the original documents to protect the sources. An anonymous senior British official said the documents appeared authentic.

The originals were destroyed?!?!? Not that I'm skeptical or anything. I mean, no one in the mainstream media would do a story on the eve of a national election with forged documents. They would carefully check their sources, and would most certainly not run anything that wasn't carefully vetted, wouldn't they? Wouldn't they? Anybody? They wouldn't do that....again.