"We were not able to authenticate the documents as thoroughly as I think we should have, given a little more time perhaps we could have." [emphasis mine]
Given a little more time for what? If they needed more time to get to the truth why didn't they take it? The only reason Rather would say such a thing is because they were not interersted in the truth, there was an election coming up, and they were running out of time to influence the outcome.
Cordially,
A little more time? How much? They had a week or more before they finally made any sort of admission that there was a problem.
In the months since the broadcast, you'd think they'd have been able to produce one scintilla of evidence that the counterfeit (not forgeries) documents were real.
Have they been working on that for the last 4 months??