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Mueller disputes Buzzfeed story on Trump directing Michael Cohen to lie to Congress

Mueller disputes Buzzfeed story on Trump directing Michael Cohen to lie to Congress

“BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the Special Counsel’s Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony are not accurate.”

Earlier I wrote about Buzzfeed’s “if true” bombshell report that Trump directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress, and cautioned:

We have been here sooooooo many times before.

A media outlet publishes an article based on anonymous sources providing information that is so vague it cannot be proven or disproven, but which purports to (1) implicate Trump in a crime, (2) show collusion with the Russians, and/or (3) raise enough suspicions to justify a 3-5 day news cycle.

So many of these reports are dropped before a weekend, guaranteeing they will dominate the news cycle for days.

And in each and every instance the report is blown out of the water or substantially rewritten, other news outlets could not verify, or other news outlets themselves call the report into doubt. Even when there is a kernel of fact underlying the report, the spin is usually the key to why people click on it. This is all fed by the news media “Scoop” culture.

The typical reaction from people who are not part of #TheResistance, whether Trump supporters or not, is the preface “if true.”

I’ve seen a number of people say they follow a 24-hour rule on these bombshell reports. I think that’s too kind. It’s better to wait 48-72 hours, at a minimum, since so many of these bombshells take days, not hours, to reveal themselves to be duds.

The Buzzfeed story led to foaming-at-the-mouth Democrat congressional demands for an impeachment investigation.

But the Buzzfeed story barely made it to the 24 hour mark.

In an unusual move, Robert Mueller’s office issued a statement disputing the Buzzfeed story.

The following “Update” has been posted to the Buzzfeed story:

A spokesperson for special counsel Robert Mueller’s office, Peter Carr, disputed aspects of BuzzFeed News’ report.

“BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the Special Counsel’s Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony are not accurate,” Carr said.

MORE TO FOLLOW

Ronan Farrow passed on the story:

I can’t speak to Buzzfeed’s sourcing, but, for what it’s worth, I declined to run with parts of the narrative they conveyed based on a source central to the story repeatedly disputing the idea that Trump directly issued orders of that kind.

Buzzfeed is standing by its story, and wants Mueller to be more specific. (That’s not how it works.)

In response to the statement tonight from the Special Counsel’s spokesman: We stand by our reporting and the sources who informed it, and we urge the Special Counsel to make clear what he’s disputing.

Rudy is spiking the football and doing an end zone dance:

I commend Bob Mueller’s office for correcting the BuzzFeed false story that Pres. Trump encouraged Cohen to lie. I ask the press to take heed that their hysterical desire to destroy this President has gone too far. They pursued this without critical analysis all day. #FAKENEWS

https://twitter.com/RudyGiuliani/status/1086437984830935040

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Comments

Blue Dog, Yellow Dog and now Rabid Dog Democrats; why is their mascot a donkey?

Colonel Travis | January 18, 2019 at 8:24 pm

This just in: liar reporter reports yet another lie. But let’s spend the entire day talking about what it would be like if this lie were true, because pretending is what’s really important.

American media can go to hell.

    MSM: TRUMP, We Got’em. We Don’t Got’em. We Do. We Don’t….

    Trump Haters Tweets: But, but, but, but…Dang it!!!!!

    News Babe interviews Buzzfeed reporters….

    News Babe: Have you both seen the evidence?
    Reporter 1: Yes.
    Reporter 2: No.
    News Babe: Which is it?
    Reporter 1: No.
    Reporter 2: Yes.

    TY Colonel Travis.

    Nailed it.

    It occurred to me the same way of thinking is being applied to human gender now a days. It is the pretending that is important.

    It ain’t the “American media.” It’s the democrat media.

    There is plenty of objective media and conservative media out there.

    Let’s be accurate, and not throw the pelosi out with the bath water.

if ever a media company needed to be disbanded, it is Bussfeed

regulus arcturus | January 18, 2019 at 8:37 pm

This appears to be actionable.

But the clicks, tho…

Commies and nevertrumpers taken in again.

BS story #812, the true believers just wait for the next because it will be the one…

OMG, you need to put together a thread of DT Jr’s tweets! He’s on a roll! Best so far:

Hey Adam, turns out it was Full of Shiff!

In Mark Levin’s deconstruction of the Buzzfeed report this afternoon he argued that “if true”, the only source for this story would have been someone on Mueller’s team and maybe even Mueller himself. For Mueller or someone on his team to leak this kind of information would be a major violation calling for the investigation of his entire operation.

So maybe Mueller was listening to Levin today and wants to nip this story in the bud before it gets legs. “If true”, issuing a leak would be a much bigger story than Buzzfeed reporting that a pathological liar has made more dubious claims and Mueller believes him.

This story is dead. Trump can now proceed with his methodical torturing of Pelosi without any more distractions about the need for him to immediately resign or face impeachment. Wolf! Wolf! Wolf! Wolf!

    But…….if Mueller is covering his ass on a leak than he has a problem. If he uses the charge against Trump then he exposes that he leaked and how can he hide such a damning piece of evidence which, for him, would be mission accomplished?

      Edward in reply to MarkS. | January 19, 2019 at 9:34 am

      Consider this rationally. IF Cohen had actually so testified, most any moderately competent prosecutor would have charged Cohen with perjury and then have Cohen, in his plea, bring in the person who ordered him to perjure himself. Cohen was not charged perjury.

      And, perhaps even more importantly, why would Trump commit the felony of suborning perjury about a completely legal activity? A person in the real estate business seeking a meeting to negotiate a business deal in another country is something the Trump organization did with some frequency, it is not illegal.

Mueller I think fears Barr, otherwise he would have left it twist in the wind

    More likely, Buzzfeed made it all up and Mueller recognizes the implications about his team being the only logical source of a leak so he jumped on it to kill it from the start. It’s all bad for Mueller to do otherwise.

    With credibility shattered, it will be interesting to see if Mueller now decides to wrap up the investigation, especially with the Senate investigation of the Clinton Foundation maturing. I think everyone is now tired of this witch hunt.

New it was carp from the get go. Didn’t match the charging document and “if true” it would have been used as an October surprise last election cycle, because it’s an actual crime, “if true”.

I’m actually impressed that after two years, they still got zip.
That says a lot about Trump’s honesty in action even if he is a chronic hyperbolist.

But can’t they pretend it is really true and the election will be called void and Hillary will be president for just a few more hyperventilated news cycles?

It’s like when I buy a lottery ticket, I’ve not-lost and have maybe won until the reality cannot be ignored.

    Merlin01 in reply to Andy. | January 20, 2019 at 8:35 am

    That’s so funny, I actually do the lottery thing. I don’t even bother to check for weeks, sometime months. Extends the value! =)

“Are not accurate”….does that mean “utter lies”?

    RITaxpayer in reply to herm2416. | January 19, 2019 at 6:57 am

    I can hear Chuck Todd on MeetThePress this Sunday:

    AHA!! Mueller said the report isn’t accurate. He didn’t say it was false!! So this is PROOF that the gist of the story is true, someone just forgot to dot the I or cross the T somewhere!

    IMPEACHMENT IS CERTAIN!!

    RED MAN BAD!!

regulus arcturus | January 19, 2019 at 12:32 am

Update/theory: this appears to be a plant/false lead sent thru Andy Weissmann.

I think this was suppose to distract everyone from the Bruce Ohr testimony and the drama associated with the cancellation of the junked.

It backfired. Bigly.

The first decision Mueller and his team have made in two years that I agree with. I can’t help but wonder what they’re up to.

Hey, here’s the latest statement from Buzzfeed…

We here at Buzzfeed News are standing beside our story…
Cause we decided standing behind our story was dangerous…
Cause…you know…we don’t want to get…backed over…
Thank You,
The Buzzfeed Staff.

These BS “news” stories appear to be coordinated with the DNC. The “story” is quickly followed by a DNC donation request in my email inbox. The lie only needs to last for a few hours for the DNC to make money (not from me obviously). The left is conducting a war.

I believe the selection of Attorney General Barr has the Special Counsel running scared and is a real threat to Mueller and the rest of the Deep State!

Mueller knows that Barr doesn’t value their friendship more than the truth or the Constitution.

Stay tuned folks this is just getting good!

    Jackie in reply to Merlin01. | January 19, 2019 at 11:32 am

    I was thinking with Rosenstein soon to be gone and it has been revealed that several members of Mueller’s team knew the dossier was Russian propaganda ran through the Clinton’s that he better start telling the truth. I also believe the reason Trump has not declassified the FISA and other documents was he has some sort of deal with Rosenstein and Mueller. He was going to release those documents, probably destroying Rosenstein who lied the FISA Court and for some reason didn’t do it. I don’t believe for a second the reasons given. Our allies didn’t want us to do it, etc. No trump was offered a deal that was to his benefit.

      Merlin01 in reply to Jackie. | January 20, 2019 at 8:31 am

      If you listen to “Joey Bag of Donuts”,Dan Bongino, he makes a pretty good case for Brits and Aussies being very worried that their involvement in the whole mess is going to become public. I’m pretty sure the Russians don’t mind and maybe even enjoy it! =)

NPR and it’s merry band of Leftist “journalists” prefaced their discussion yesterday by admitting that Buzzfeed is a pretty sketchy website but that didn’t keep the “expert” panel from spending the next 5 minutes participating in an exercise of wishful thinking and verbal salivation.

    Edward in reply to DanJ1. | January 19, 2019 at 9:47 am

    FNC’s Bill Hemmer had (IIRC) Newt Gingrich on and asked him a question about this story which required a yes or no if the person was familiar with the allegation. As Newt immediately gave his one word answer Hemmer had to continue on and read out the whole allegation, just couldn’t pass an opportunity to get it out one more time.

Canary trap.

Mueller, someone is leaking from your office, allowing it is beneath the dignity of your office and you should resign. (Copied from leftist playbook)

Followed the link to MSNBC and they are trying to parse Mueller’s statement in countless ways. None of them stating that the Buzzfeed article is very short on facts.

Followed the link to MSNBC and they are trying to parse Mueller’s statement in countless ways. None of them stating that the Buzzfeed article is very short on facts.

Followed the link to MSNBC and they are trying to parse Mueller’s statement in countless ways. None of them stating that the Buzzfeed article is very short on facts.

FWIW, I don’t click on the click-bait stories unless (a) I want to give the organization (such as LI) the clicks, or (b) it might be amusing and I don’t mind the platform getting my click (e.g. NOT BuzzFeed, Vox, etc.)

“‘The larger message that a lot of people are going to take from this story is that the news media are a bunch of leftist liars who are dying to get the president, and they’re willing to lie to do it,’ [CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin says of BuzzFeed]. ‘And I don’t think that’s true.’”

We can’t continue to play defense.

The right must go after stories like how Pelosi got her hundreds of millions (can you guess), the FBI corruption, hillary clinton’s treason, obama’s treason, wasserman schultz’ crimes, susan rice’s crimes, samantha powers’, john brennan’s, etc. etc etc.

This beyond stupid.

    Close The Fed in reply to TheFineReport.com. | January 19, 2019 at 8:18 pm

    What the Fine Report said. I’d go even farther.

    So, why did House democrats hire a foreigner to do IT work, rather than good ole Americans, including black Americans?

    So, let’s find out exactly what DiFi liked to talk about around her chauffer (sp?).

    And let’s find out EXACTLY how indebted Mitch McConnell feels to the ChiComs, considering he profits from his wife’s family’s shipping business that does evidently millions upon millions of dollars of business with them. . . .

    If the news would spend 10% of the time on this as they do on the Trump jag, the dems and GOPe would be dying on the vine.

    Pelosi got her hundreds of millions by marrying them.

OleDirtyBarrister | January 19, 2019 at 5:59 pm

Trump is way too lenient on the media and does not cause them nearly enough pain. Trump, Pence, and their advisers should think hard how to disembowel the national media, undermine its power and influence, and make media access to the WH and POTUS more egalitarian. The media maggots in the national media will whine incessantly like a litter of puppies that just cannot be weaned.

The first thing he should do is show off pictures of the media room and the mess those pigs make in it daily. He should rail at them on TV and demand they cease being such swine and clean up after themselves. If you ever go to the White House, make sure you see it.

The very next thing he should do is pull all press passes for the WH and set up a briefing room off WH grounds in the basement of a federal building. Make the press provide their own water, coffee, microwave, whatever. Confine them to certain areas. Do not provide them with telephone service or internet service. Make them fend for themselves in filing stories and communicating with the home office.

Establish a lottery system for those that attend press briefing, and perhaps let those outlets attend for the entire week. No outlet gets more than one pass.

Terminate established preferential seating in the briefing room. The WHY will assign seats based on the lottery and change seating every day on a rotation that provides more egalitarian access for press outlets.

Establish a over the internet press briefing system to allow reporters and perhaps qualified bloggers to ask questions remotely. Make the reporters in the press room sit through those questions and answer them first and make the ones present ask their questions last. That will piss them off!

Revoke press passes for travel for the WH press pool. End the practice of free rides for media maggots on Air Force One and Two, and on other flights, such as Moonbat One that transports Fancy Nancy and her entourage around. Establish a lottery for those that get to travel just like the press briefing room. Establish a payment scale on par with first class or business travel for major media outlets like ABC, CBS, CNN< Fox, WSJ, USA Today, Tribune, Gannett, etc. But also have a pauper section so small outlets in Omaha and Ocala and points all around can participate in the lottery and get to ride for a reduced fair if they are selected in the lottery.

Establish a system in which Trump and Pence do more interviews with small media outlets in places like Sioux Falls, Wichita, and Macon, both in person and through an over the internet system similar to Skype and as discussed above for the press briefing room. Perhaps use the one in the press briefing room.

Mueller’s team didn’t ‘dispute’ the Buzzfeed account, they DENIED it. Period.