Rudy Giuliani says he contacted Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office Friday after BuzzFeed News released its report alleging Mueller's team had proof Donald Trump told Michael Cohen to lie to Congress, and Giuliani's admission raised concerns over whether the president's legal team was telling the special counsel's office what to do.
But according to The Washington Post, the explosive nature of the article's allegations and the subsequent rise in talk of impeachment led the special counsel's office to weigh in on its own.
Apparently, the BuzzFeed News correspondents reached out to the special counsel's spokesman for comment in advance of publication, but what they conveyed about the story fell short of what actually made it online.
The reporter informed Mueller’s spokesman, Peter Carr, that he and a colleague had “a story coming stating that Michael Cohen was directed by President Trump himself to lie to Congress about his negotiations related to the Trump Moscow project,” according to copies of their emails provided by a BuzzFeed spokesman. Importantly, the reporter made no reference to the special counsel’s office specifically or evidence that Mueller’s investigators had uncovered.
(...)
When BuzzFeed published the story hours later, it far exceeded Carr’s initial impression ... in that the reporting alleged that Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and self-described fixer, “told the special counsel that after the election, the president personally instructed him to lie,” and that Mueller’s office learned of the directive “through interviews with multiple witnesses from the Trump Organization and internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents.”
In the view of the special counsel’s office, that was wrong... And with Democrats raising the specter of investigation and impeachment, Mueller’s team started discussing a step they had never before taken: publicly disputing reporting on evidence in their ongoing investigation.
(...)
People familiar with the matter said Carr told others in the government that he would have more vigorously discouraged the reporters from proceeding with the story had he known it would allege Cohen had told the special counsel Trump directed him to lie — or that the special counsel was said to have learned this through interviews with Trump Organization witnesses, as well as internal company emails and text messages.
CNN:
The statement was drafted internally within the special counsel's office, which made the decision to release it, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the situation. The deputy attorney general's office, which oversees the special counsel, was only given a heads up it was coming Friday evening.
Carr declined to comment to CNN about any communication from the Trump legal team.
BuzzFeed has since stood by its report, which CNN has not corroborated.
CNN's Senior White House Correspondent posted today what appears to be an attempt by the special counsel's office to shut down any speculation Giuliani orchestrated the discrediting statement.
After BuzzFeed article, Trump legal team reached out to Mueller's office, Giuliani says (CNN)
BuzzFeed News Faces Scrutiny After Mueller Denies a Dramatic Trump Report (NYT)
Inside the Mueller team’s decision to dispute BuzzFeed’s explosive story on Trump and Cohen (WaPo)