Mueller disputes report that Trump ordered lie
BuzzFeed account ‘not accurate,’ counsel says
WASHINGTON — Special counsel Robert Mueller’s office on Friday issued a rare public statement disputing the accuracy of BuzzFeed News’ report that said President Donald Trump’s former attorney told Mueller that the president directed him to lie to Congress.
BuzzFeed, citing two unidentified law enforcement officials, reported that Trump directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about a Moscow real estate project and that Cohen told Mueller the president personally instructed him to lie about the timing of the deal. The report said Mueller’s investigators learned about Trump’s directive “through interviews with multiple witnesses from the Trump Organization and internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents.”
The report said Cohen acknowledged Trump’s instructions when he was interviewed by the Mueller team.
The statement by Mueller’s office on Friday night doesn’t cite any specific errors. In it, the special counsel’s spokesman, Peter Carr, said, “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.”
BuzzFeed spokesman Matt Mittenthal said the publication stands by its reporting and urged readers to “stay tuned” as they worked to determine what Mueller was denying. Ben Smith, editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed News, also said the publication stands by its reporting and the sources who informed it.
“We urge the special counsel to make clear what he’s disputing,” Smith said.
Immediately after the special counsel’s statement was issued, Trump retweeted several posts that called the story fake news. He later tweeted: “A very sad day for journalism, but a great day for our Country!”
Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, tweeted: “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.”
The extraordinary statement from Mueller’s office came after Democrats had vowed to investigate whether the report was true, calling that possibility a “concern of the greatest magnitude.” House intelligence committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., both said they would probe BuzzFeed’s account. Some Democrats even said that if the report were true, then Trump should be impeached.
The Associated Press had not independently confirmed the report. Any evidence that Trump directed a witness to lie to investigators would place him in the greatest political and legal jeopardy yet.
Giuliani said in a statement earlier Friday that “any suggestion — from any source — that the President counseled Michael Cohen to lie is categorically false.” White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders called the allegation “absolutely ridiculous.”
On Twitter on Friday morning, Trump charged that Cohen was “Lying to reduce his jail time!”
Cohen pleaded guilty in November to lying to Congress to cover up that he was negotiating the Trump Tower project on Trump’s behalf during the heat of his presidential campaign. The charge was brought by Mueller and was the result of Cohen’s cooperation with that probe.
He was sentenced to three years in prison for crimes that included arranging the payment of hush money to conceal his boss’ alleged sexual affairs.