Now, after Cohen testified to what seems to be vidication of the Buzzfeed article, the New Yorker has just published an interview with Buzzfeed's Jason Leopold about the whole controversy.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.[NY:] In his opening statement, Cohen claimed that “Mr. Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress. That’s not how he operates. In conversations we had during the campaign, at the same time I was actively negotiating in Russia for him, he would look me in the eye and tell me there’s no Russian business and then go on to lie to the American people by saying the same thing. In his way, he was telling me to lie.” The strong language that BuzzFeed used—which described Cohen’s earlier testimony as “the first known example of Trump telling a subordinate to lie directly about his own dealings with Russia”—appeared to conflict with Cohen’s account. At the same time, Cohen confirmed other aspects of BuzzFeed’s reporting, including that he briefed Donald Trump, Jr., and Ivanka Trump on the deal, and that, as BuzzFeed wrote, “attorneys close to the administration helped Cohen prepare his testimony and draft his statement to the Senate panel.” On Wednesday, Cohen said that “Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers reviewed and edited my statement to Congress about the timing of the Moscow Tower negotiations before I gave it.”
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Leopold, who was previously at Vice News, is considered an expert at using Freedom of Information Act requests and was part of a team of BuzzFeed reporters who were Pulitzer Prize finalists in 2018. He has also been the subject of controversy. In 2002, Salon removed an article from its Web site after Leopold was accused of inaccuracy and plagiarism. Four years later, he incorrectly reported that Karl Rove, George W. Bush’s deputy chief of staff, had been indicted in the investigation into the outing of the C.I.A. agent Valerie Plame. (Leopold was open about past substance abuse and mental health issues in a 2006 memoir, “News Junkie.”)
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[JL:] I will say that I have evidence that what he said to Congress as it pertains to the story that Anthony Cormier and I wrote was correct.
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Cohen confirmed the central thesis of our report. The President met with him before his false testimony, White House lawyers edited his false testimony before he gave it, and Cohen understood that the President was directing him to lie to Congress. [Cohen claimed that the changes were made by Trump’s personal lawyers, not White House lawyers.]
[NY:] In the piece, you wrote, in what was the central thesis of your story, that this was “the first known example of Trump explicitly telling a subordinate to lie directly about his own dealings with Russia.” Was that language accurate?
[JL:] Cohen totally understood that he was being directed by Trump to lie to Congress. He did not mention how many meetings or explicit words that the President may have spoken that led him to lie. And, you know, more may come out, but Cohen himself made it clear in his testimony that he and Trump both understood this to be explicit, that he should lie to Congress. And he made it clear that it was an explicit command.
[NY:] Do you think him saying “He did not directly tell me to lie” contradicts at all you writing that this was “the first known example of Trump explicitly telling a subordinate to lie?”
[JL:] Those people are seizing onto Cohen’s use of the word “directly.” The President didn’t “directly tell me to lie.” That’s an adverb that characterizes the underlying instruction to lie. And Cohen says almost immediately after that that the President was telling him to lie “in his way.” So there is no longer any question about the direction Trump gave Cohen. The debate is now about how the direction was given, and a lot of people don’t want to admit that they were wrong.
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Anthony and I and, obviously, BuzzFeed are standing by what our sources told us, which is not contradicted by Cohen’s testimony, and what he said is that he knew a hundred per cent what the President was telling him to do. You know, Isaac, if that is not an explicit instruction, then everything short of “Michael, please lie for me” isn’t, either. Cohen understood it to be an order, a direction, an instruction.
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Cohen testified that there were ten discussions he had with Trump, or the Trump family. Our story states, based on these two law-enforcement sources, that they had ten discussions, that Don, Jr., and Ivanka Trump were involved, that Trump was very eager to go to Russia. So our story fleshes out further what [Mueller’s] sentencing memo essentially implied.
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[P]eople are twisting themselves into pretzels to justify their earlier reporting that doubted the central claims in our story rather than trying to get at the truth of what Trump actually said to Cohen to make him lie, which Cohen acknowledged multiple times in the hearing.
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Judicial Watch recently sent a letter to the Inspector General calling for a leak investigation into the two law-enforcement sources who have been leaking for us. So, when it came down to what ["internal company emails, text messages, and other documents" as noted in our story] may or may not say, I don’t even want to discuss that because of those issues.
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I am not going to discuss what [we] may or may not have seen.
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[NY note: [Co-writer Anthony] Cormier said in an interview that [they] were briefed on the documents, but neither of [them] had seen them. ... In an e-mail the day after our conversation, Leopold noted that Cormier only spoke for himself when he said that he had not seen the documents. Leopold added, “When we reported this story out, I was in LA and DC and Anthony was in NYC.”]
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[JL:] Michael Cohen discussed [the idea of selling Putin a $50M penthouse in the proposed Moscow Tower] with an assistant to [Putin’s spokesman] Dmitry Peskov. I understand that there has been commentary by one of the other individuals involved in that who said it was just a marketing plan. But we made it clear in the story that this was not just an idea that these two people were spitballing. This was a plan that was discussed with Dmitry Peskov’s assistant. Michael Cohen, in his own testimony, called it a marketing plan or marketing idea—I don’t have the exact wording. And in addition to that, he noted that the reason they were discussing it was to hopefully attract buyers. [When questioned about this during the hearing, Cohen named Felix Sater as the originator of this idea, saying, “It was a marketing stunt.”]
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I want to make clear that this story, the penthouse story, as well as the story we wrote a month ago, and all the other stories, are subject to the highest level of scrutiny. As is all of our high-profile articles. It was vetted by multiple editors and lawyers, and we did not publish it until everyone was satisfied that the reporting was rock-solid.
[NY:] Do you have a larger sense now of why you think Mueller’s office disputed aspects of your reporting?
[JL:] I do not. And in fact, we are obviously very eager to learn why they made those comments, what led them to make those comments. I filed several FOIA requests with the Department of Justice, the office of the special counsel, with the hopes of prying loose a wide range of records that would lay bare what took place behind the scenes, that could shed light on that decision-making process on the decision to release that unprecedented statement. As it stands right now, as we are speaking, I do not have any additional insight into why they issued that statement.
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[M]y reaction to it was, “This is a carefully-worded legal statement that is also somewhat ambiguous.” I was unable to determine what they were referring to. So first it was confusion, then it was simply a matter of trying to figure out within our story, going through each paragraph, what they were referring to. Because it was not a wholesale “This story isn’t correct.” They seem to have spent quite a bit of time targeting something in the story. I did not think of it as “they are disputing a word” [or] “they are disputing a certain paragraph.” I simply could not figure out what they were trying to say about the story itself.
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I’ll say this: Cohen totally understood he was being directed to lie. And my understanding, sticking to and standing behind what my sources said, is that Cohen was directed to lie. And I also expect that more information will come out that will make it even clearer that this was in fact a directive. And, again, Cohen used the word “directly.”
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“He did not directly tell me to lie.” And he said he was directed, and he made that clear in his testimony that he was directed to lie. I feel like I have to go back again to state it was an adverb, and it characterizes the underlying instruction to lie. I am comfortable with the use of our word “directed” and I am confident more will be revealed about what exactly was said to Cohen, or what additional words were said to him.
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[A]t the end of the day, we are simply just reporting the facts about what is taking place, and in terms of individuals we are writing about, when it is time to inform people about who they are, that’s exactly what we’re doing.
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I am obviously aware of my past. I know that it’s there and I know it can be weaponized.
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I did make mistakes, O.K., but that was decades ago, and since then I have learned from those mistakes. And I am in a unique position of knowing how not to repeat those mistakes. I think the series of stories that Anthony and I wrote is evidence we have been way ahead of the investigation time and again. My work has stood up to the highest forms of scrutiny, and I welcome this scrutiny. My past is my past and I have to have a thick skin, and that is, essentially, people are going to say what they are going to say.
New Yorker
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