informed it and we urge the special counsel to make clear what he s disputing. that s where we are tonight. happy two years of the trump administration, right? this is how we re celebrating the two-year jubilee in our country with this week-long celebration of absolutely terrifying neck-snapping news. we re also in day 28 of a government shutdown. there s apparently not going to be a state of the union this year and the administration as of today is officially dropping sanctions on companies associated with the russian oligarch who was sanctioned for election interference. how is your family celebrating the anniversary, because that s what we re doing as a country. as i mentioned, the editor-in-chief at buzzfeed, ben smith, tonight has put out his own statement responding to the special counsel after the special counsel put out an incredibly rare statement disputing reporting from buzzfeed today. we re joined now by ben smith, who is the editor-in-chief of buzzfeed news. ben, th
and then, again, this is all the same week. this is how we are leading up to the two-year anniversary of trump being sworn in all this same week. now buzzfeed news has been the source of an all-day furor today with their just volcanically explosive reporting that president trump personally instructed michael cohen to lie to congress about the trump tower moscow project and how how long negotiations went on and how involved trump and his family were. remember, michael cohen has pled guilty lying to congress about that. the buzzfeed reporting is that trump directed cohen to make those false statements. buzzfeed reports that, quote, the special counsel s office learned about trump s directive for cohen to lie to congress through interviews with multiple witnesses from the trump organization and internal company e-mails, text messages and a cache of other documents, and buzzfeed further reports that cohen then confirmed this to mueller s team.
cohen s own words when he pled guilty to lying about the trump tower moscow meeting. he said in federal court that day, i made these statements to be consistent with individual one, that s donald trump s political messaging, and out of loyalty to individual one, donald trump. he didn t say anything about being directed to make the statements. he said he was trying to be consistent with trump s messaging. so all that was good reason to question the story from the get-go. and i think when you get the special counsel s statement, which obviously was tailored to what was attributed to mueller s office itself. that s why it was so carefully worded. it was talking about what buzzfeed said about what the special counsel had accumulated. but all that said, i just want to make one more point. the unfortunate thing about a story like this is it distracts from what we do know and what is
again, that the president directed him to lie to congress to cover up at least some aspect of the trump tower moscow project. that s what the week has been like. now tonight just as we were getting on the air, after a day in which multiple members of congress described the buzzfeed report as if true, the most serious allegations against trump yet, if true definitely the grounds for impeachment. if true, an inflection point in the entire scandal surrounding this presidency from the outset. that if true caveat tonight itself blew up when the special counsel s office made this exceedingly rare public statement in response to the buzzfeed reporting. buzzfeed s description of special statements excuse me. 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. that is from peter carr, the spokesman for the special couns
starting late last night and continuing into now, we have been unpacking this story published by buzzfeed news, reporting that the president directed his attorney michael cohen to lie to congress about the trump tower moscow project and reporting that the special counsel learned this both from cohen but also from other witnesses and from other documents. then suddenly late tonight the special counsel s office issued a statement disputing at least the part of the story that has to do with the special counsel. mueller s office saying in this, again, rare statement tonight that buzzfeed s, quote, 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. description of specific statements. description of specific statements.