Buzzfeed/Buzzsaw

I didn't write about the Buzzfeed scoop yesterday, because it's always best to let the wildest claims about Trump marinate for a while.  Interestingly, Mueller's office issued a very oddly worded refutation of some of the facts of that story.  Josh Marshall has a nice run down of what the refutation could mean. 

Mueller's office is incredibly leak free, and that is because they know that any premature disclosure of what they know could force Trump to close them down or issue pardons.  The idea is to gather everything into one huge report and then dump everything at once, so that Trump can wriggle out.  Mueller doesn't want to rely on Senate Republicans for protection.

But read the statement:

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.

As Marshall notes, it says "to the Special Counsel's Office."  The source of the story is almost certainly within the Southern District of New York USAG's office.  They leak.  Mueller doesn't.  At first, the Office of Special Counsel declined to comment.  Notably, no White House spokesperson has categorically denied the allegations that Trump suborned perjury.  So, what is inaccurate about the story? 

There is this bit from the story:

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 emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents. 

Again, the Trump Organization has largely been investigated by SDNY.  Perhaps they mischaracterized HOW Mueller learned of instructions for Cohen to lie to Congress?  Maybe THEY didn't interview him, but SDNY did and passed that information on to Special Counsel?  Who knows?  The statement from Mueller's team is very vague. 

Buzzfeed's reporters on this story are very good reporters.  They have gone back and checked with their sources.  They are standing by the story.  Presumably, this means that their sources are not people from the Trump orbit who might try to ratf-ck the investigation by issuing misleading claims. 

Marshall also notes that Rod Rosenstein might be part of the motivation to issue the statement:

But if a story like this is out there, this damning to the President and is in some material and significant way wrong, it quite plausible to me that (Rosenstein) would have insisted the Mueller’s office release a statement. It’s equally plausible that the decision was Mueller’s.

Or maybe it's wrong in the details, but the overall gist of it is correct, and Rosenstein is demanding that they issue a statement to put out fires at Justice.

Prior to yesterday, the idea that Trump suborned perjury from Cohen was certainly plausible, but there was no evidence.  Buzzfeed claims to have seen evidence that this happened.  The OSC has issued a very tightly worded denial of that story.

We are back to where we were Thursday, in many ways.  I don't think I can firmly say that Buzzfeed got played or that their story is accurate.  Certainly it's a powerful reminder to take these initial stories with a grain of salt. 

Sadly, the contradictory statements on this means that the impact will be blunted.  The first article of impeachment against Nixon was going to be suborning perjury.  That's why this report is such a huge deal.  But if we have contradictory reports and we don't know for sure whether this happened for months, and then SDNY or OSC releases that it's true in April, the impact of that will be lessened.

Alternatively, Trump's corruption extends in some many directions, that one charge more or less won't matter.