blockchain data is sufficiently malleable and subjective that you can make it say anything you want. journalists working with on-chain data should know this.
you're never going to get specific answers from on-chain data. the correct attitude to the data should be hedging and humility. it is completely irresponsible to make hard factive claims about clusters of addresses. (my credentials on this: I cofounded an on-chain data company – I've been puzzling over on-chain data for seven years).
it is a fact that the Warren letter, which relies exclusively on the WSJ reporting, specifically states "[PIJ and Hamas] raised over $130 million in crypto", with no caveats or emphasis of the uncertainty of the underlying data. we know now that this is false. there's no data which supports a claim this strong, period.
the WSJ whether they like it or not, are willing patsies for Warren in this case. what they _should_ have done, if they wanted to stress the nUaNcE in the data, is to specifically and immediately refute the Warren letter, to the extent that it was unsupported by their own reporting. (and to be clear, the mealy mouthed journos that are trying to weasel out of this would _not_ be able to defend the claims in the Warren letter.)
part of the reason we in the crypto space are so upset is because the WSJ set the table for Warren to come in and start to crack down aggressively on crypto based on this terrorist financing canard. if the WSJ had been intellectually honest, they could have reacted to the letter and issued some follow-up reporting emphasizing the uncertainty in the data.
they did not do this. they doubled down, and now when pressed, are falling back on much weaker claims ("these wallets are PIJ-linked" "Wallets associated with Hamas received "up to" 93m" etc). meanwhile, the Warren letter is outstanding, an atrocity.
I know as a journalist when the subject of your article reacts harshly to your reporting, you take that as a cue that you're over the target, and your instinct is to double down. in this case, that's wrong. accept that you paired hard claims with extremely subjective data, and that was inappropriate. listen to, dare I say, the experts.