Seymour Hersh says after the Scholz-Biden meeting on March 3, the CIA was instructed to come up with a cover story for the Nord Stream bombings in coordination with German intelligence. On March 7, NYT and Germany’s Die Zeit published the planted stories.

….there was a discussion of the pipeline exposé and, as a result, certain elements in the Central Intelligence Agency were asked to prepare a cover story in collaboration with German intelligence that would provide the American and German press with an alternative version for the destruction of Nord Stream 2. In the words of the intelligence community, the agency was “to pulse the system” in an effort to discount the claim that Biden had ordered the pipelines’ destruction.

https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/the-cover-up