report. cohen has admitted that he falsely told lawmakers that talks about the moscow project ended months earlier than they actually did. buzzfeed says according to its sources, the president personally instructed cohen to lie. cnn justice correspondent jessica schneider has more on this reporting. so walk us through what we need to know about this report. brianna, this is an explosive report with several significant revelations all attributed to two law enforcement officials to back it up. so first, the president reportedly supported a plan that was spearheaded by michael cohen to visit russia during the presidential campaign and even for donald trump to personally meet with vladimir putin. this, of course, would all be sort of that start to that effort to jump-start the trump tower moscow negotiations. now, buzzfeed even says that then-candidate donald trump told michael cohen, quote, make it happen, which, of course, it never actually did. in addition, this report also describes
thing. let s listen. if there was reason to believe that the president tried to coach somebody not to testify or testify falsely, that could be obstruction of justice? yes, under an obstruction, yes. you wrote on page one that the president directing someone to commit perjury would be obstruction, is that right? yes. carrie, when you look at bill barr saying that, why is this report something that could be a game changer? because this particular allegation that s being alleged in the buzzfeed article accuses the president of basically committing obstruction, of directing an individual, michael cohen, to provide false testimony to congress. so even under the theory that attorney general barr has explained in the memo that he had sent to the justice department even before he was nominated, this type of obstruction would not be something that would fall under any kind of presidential power
so it s possible obviously he has learned and changed. i would have felt better, and i want to ask you, garrett, they didn t see the texts. they didn t see the e-mails. they didn t see the transcripts of the other interviews with the other trump organization people they say their law enforcement sources are relying on. so it s not just michael cohen s word against trump. it s not just he said/he said. there is a mound of evidence. i wish the reporters had said it but they say their sources are rock solid. one of the things we can know in this particular case unfortunately is the sources have been incredibly good on other aspects of the story. we have some sense actually of who some of the previous anonymous sources are because actually one of them has been arrested by the fbi for leaking to buzzfeed about some of the
enforcement sources that matter. they are his, but should that cause us corn and take a step back and take the report with a grain of salt? i don t think necessarily in this specific case. buzzfeed, as you said, has been one of the news outlets that has led the way on this story start to finish. you know, right from the start really with the steel dossier through reporting. jason and anthony have done some incredible work on some of the financial movements that the treasury department has been interested in that have been handed over to mueller as part of the russia probe. this is news coming from a team that has demonstrated on this particular story in ways that rank with the best reporting that we have seen. jason leopold got in trouble for his reporting in 2002, 2006.
moments ago the white house responded to that bombshell buzzfeed report that president trump directed michael cohen to lie to congress. the press secretary calling it categorically false but potential 2020 democratic contenders have been mostly quiet about it. vermont senator bernie sanders definitely tweeted about it writing if this report is true, donald trump committed obstruction of justice, a felony and a potentially impeachable offense, but we haven t heard from any other 2020 contenders. i should say we hadn t until cnn asked democratic senator corey booker about it today as he has been down in new orleans. i want the investigation to continue in a timely and thorough way and obviously the kind of charges that many people are talking about hold serious consequences for anybody whether you re a president of the united states or a citizen and this is what we have about america. no one is above the law. donald trump is not above the law. there s an investigation going on and it s