Taipei prosecutors have charged a New Party city councillor with using a forged document to attack the ruling DPP days before the last presidential vote — bad news for him, and a warning shot for anyone spreading unchecked political dirt in Taiwan.

• Hou Han-ting held a press conference three days before the vote, showing what he called a leaked DPP internal strategy paper claiming the party planned to brand Ko Wen-je, the KMT and the TPP as pro-Beijing.
• Prosecutors say no such DPP strategy group ever existed, and the document was full of typos and simplified Chinese characters — signs it was faked.
• He is charged under Taiwan's presidential and public office election laws plus forgery, on the view that he never checked the source before going public.
• The file reached him by messaging app from former lawmaker Chiu Yi, who told investigators he had flagged it as likely fake; Hou's own chats show him boasting he got to break it first.
• Hou is unrepentant, calling the indictment a medal and saying charges are not a conviction.

Outlook: The case now heads to court, where the fight will be over whether he did enough to check the document before publishing it.