As soon as Mike was asked that question the foundation should have done their own investigation and then broken the story. It would have taken a couple of hours to get enough information together to spoil The Register's scoop.
Criminal background checks take at least a day, and possibly a few days, to do properly, at least in the United States. The allegations made in the Register story would have taken significant time for us to confirm or refute.
So the Wikinews volunteers are better at legal research than the WMF General Counsel? Great...