"trying to distribute" is a false characterization of "posting a hyperlink". It was factual, newsworthy information that certain documents were present at a certain address. Regardless of intent, communicating this fact is not and cannot be a case of "trying to distribute" what is at the link, because the link is not the documents. The only thing he distributed or even tried to distribute (as far as I can tell from the article) was a small piece of truthful information, not the documents.

You're right, that "trying to distribute" seems to be an incorrect characterization of Brown's intent, which is why I have deleted the comment.

However, it's incorrect to fixate on the issue of hyperlinking per se. Whether a "link is not the documents" is just technicality. If he had intended, by hyperlinking, to actually distribute the documents, I don't believe the fact that he did so by hyperlinking as opposed to some other means would matter. However, here he has a strong case that he didn't intend to distribute the documents, but was just reporting the factual information that the documents were available. It all revolves around his intent, not the fact of hyperlinking.