Trump ordered Cohen to lie to Congress

Mueller team says BuzzedFeed story was "inaccurate" but it took 24 hours for them to do it.  Here's the story:

"When a BuzzFeed reporter first sought comment on the news outlet’s explosive report that President Trump had directed his lawyer to lie to Congress, the spokesman for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III treated the request as he would almost any other story.  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.   'We’ll decline to comment,' Carr responded, a familiar refrain for those in the media who cover Mueller’s work.  In the view of the special counsel’s office, that was wrong, two people familiar with the matter said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. 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."  link

Please note:  Mueller's team did not dispute that Trump had suborned Cohen's admitted perjury; they instead said, “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.”  This is reminiscent of the moment during the WP's early Watergate reporting when Woodward and Bernstein erred in reporting on Oct. 25, 1972 that Haldeman “was one of five high-ranking presidential associates authorized to approve payments from a secret Nixon campaign cash fund, according to federal investigators and accounts of sworn testimony before the Watergate grand jury...Bernstein and Woodward wrote that former Nixon campaign treasurer Hugh Sloan Jr. had testified before a grand jury about Haldeman’s control of the fund. Sloan had indeed told Bernstein and Woodward about Haldeman’s role, but he had not told the grand jury.” link

What makes the cases seem similar is that:  (1) BuzzFeed has stood by the story, saying “As we’ve reconfirmed our reporting, we’ve seen no indication that any specific aspect of our story is inaccurate. We remain confident in what we’ve reported, and will share more as we are able.” (2) Rudy Giuliani was on television today with a non-denial that all but admitted the core piece of the story is correct:  "Giuliani acknowledged that Trump might have spoken to Cohen about his testimony, but he shrugged it off, saying that would have been 'perfectly normal.'”  And (3) Cohen has admitted to lying to Congress about these Russian contacts; why would he have put himself in such legal jeopardy for Trump if Trump had not asked him to do so?  It makes no sense.

So, it's likely that BuzzFeed's sources got something wrong about the testimony and/or documents, but that the heart of the story--that Trump asked Cohen to commit perjury--remains, and that's an impeachable offense in anyone's interpretation of the Constitution.