Less than 24-hours after BuzzFeed News dropped a potentially damning report on the Donald Trump presidency alleging the POTUS directed his former lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about the Trump Tower Moscow deal, Robert Mueller‘s office made a typically uncharacteristic move to dispute the 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,” Mueller office spokesman Peter Carr told INSIDER in an email on Friday.
The move to publicly refute the report to some degree was unprecedented for the Mueller team who’s typically extremely tight lipped on the inner workings of the investigation.
What people are saying
National Security Agency lawyer and Lawfare editor Susan Hennessey posted this one Twitter in the wake of the Mueller office statement:
Difficult to parse each and every word here, but it is extremely unusual for the Special Counsel's office to issue a statement disputing a story and should be taken very seriously. https://t.co/f0zB3Jaw4c
— Susan Hennessey (@Susan_Hennessey) January 19, 2019
Meanwhile Matthew Miller, a former Justice Department spokesperson under President Barack Obama, further touched on Hennessey’s view.
You can spend hours parsing the Carr statement, but given how unusual it is for any DOJ office to issue this sort of on the record denial, let alone this office, suspect it means the story’s core contention that they have evidence Trump told Cohen to lie is fundamentally wrong.
— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) January 19, 2019
BuzzFeed News is standing by their story
Despite the statement from Mueller’s office, BuzzFeed is standing by their story and are ‘urging’ the Special Counsel to be specific about what exactly they’re disputing in the report.
“We stand by our reporting and the sources who informed it, and we urge the Special Counsel to make clear what he’s disputing,” BuzzFeed News editor Ben Smith tweeted.
Meanwhile, Jeffrey Cramer, a longtime former federal prosecutor who spent 12 years at the Justice Department, told INSIDER that given the Mueller office statement and BuzzFeed’s continued support of their own reporting may indicate that “the truth lies in the middle”. Cramer also went on to say that “BuzzFeed went too far on the corroboration? Maybe no docs to support allegations? Story seemed to take on a life of its own today so that could be why Mueller [issued] an unusual statement”.
Other speculation concerning the Mueller Office statement revolves around the notion that Mueller’s team may have felt compelled to release some kind of dialogue considering the growing call from both sides of the aisle for them to release some kind of information pertaining to the investigation.
In any sense, the BuzzFeed News story, despite it’s validity will more than likely play a vital role if and when Michael Cohen goes in front of Congress once again.