What difference does it make?
It seems clear that the initial assignment was to dig up dirt on Trump, regardless of whether the dirt was real or made-up. The candidate would then decide whether to use the "information," and how to disseminate it. It is a tribute to the major Media outlets that none of them would publish it because it was not properly sourced.
The thing to take away from this whole mess is that Trump will never again be subject to these slanders, because his opponents on both sides went "balls to the wall" to dig up crap, they threw it at him, and nobody cared - except for people who would never have voted for him anyway.
If he runs again in 2020, the public is becoming so fatigued with the constant negativism that he will in effect be Teflon-coated.