BuzzFeed, buzz off

On Thursday evening BuzzFeed posted a story with the attention-grabbing headline “President Trump Directed His Attorney Michael Cohen To Lie To Congress About The Moscow Tower Project.” CNN ran with the story essentially nonstop yesterday. Below is CNN New Day’s tweet with a video clip of the show’s interview with BuzzFeed reporter Anthony Cormier discussing his story yesterday morning. The excitement was palpable.

“If true,” Trump was toast. Democrats couldn’t contain themselves. As Chuck Ross put it at the Daily Caller: Democrats seized on the report to call for congressional investigations into whether Trump obstructed justice or suborned perjury from Cohen…”

If not true, however, BuzzFeed is toast. Or should be.

A funny thing happened on the way to the impeachment. The Special Counsel issued an extraordinary statement yesterday evening through spokesman Peter Carr: “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.” Ed Driscoll rounds up commentary here at InstaPundit.

I thought the Special Counsel’s statement is clear, but BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith professes confusion. He seeks clarification of Mueller’s statement. Smith tweeted: “In response to the statement…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.” Maybe Don Lemon can clear it up for him!

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses