Buzzfeed Caught LYING, REFUSES To Apologize For Trump Cohen Fake News
Buzzfeed Caught LYING Pushed Fake News About Trump And Cohen. In a January story Buzzfeed claimed that Trump directly told Michael Cohen to lie to congress. Robert Mueller's office, in a rare move, directly refuted the claim in a statement. But following this Buzzfeed News doubled down and defended their story.Following Michael Cohen's testimony to congress this past week he stated clearly and definitively that Trump never directed him to lie to congress and that he just thought Trump wanted him to. This combined with past statements that Cohen lied "out of loyalty" flies in the face of Buzzfeed's report.But instead of apologizing for publishing fake news, the editor in chief and a reporter on the story just claimed they were right and even tried twisted their original wording to protect themselves.Leftist media outlets like Buzzfeed seem more interested in protecting their brand even if it means being dishonest than to admit when they are wrong. We now have Cohen even refuting claims of Russian Collusion in his congressional testimony and in response media outlets blame Trump somehow.While it may be hyperbolic and even dangerous to call the press the enemy of the people it is true that the media doesn't care about facts in many cases and just wants to protect their tribal or often far left narrative.
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In January, BuzzFeed News reported that Michael Cohen was explicitly told to lie by Donald Trump.
However, shortly after they published this report, Mueller's office issued a statement in a rare case where they refuted the story from BuzzFeed.
BuzzFeed maintained their story, said their sources were sound.
But now we have testimony from Michael Cohen himself, as he appeared before Congress, and what did he say?
He was not directly told to lie by Donald Trump.
Though he believed Trump wanted him to lie, that is still a big difference between explicitly being told and just thinking someone wants you to lie.
What did BuzzFeed News do in response?
In several interviews, Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith gave several statements where he said this vindicated their reporting, and they were right the whole time.
But he's kind of changing the language now to uphold this narrative.
Michael Cohen's testimony also shows us that Cohen himself didn't see any evidence of collusion, but he did have some suspicions.
The media now has to contend with the fact that for years they keep pushing this conspiracy narrative, but the evidence keeps acting against them.
In response to the BuzzFeed story, several mainstream journalists tried defending BuzzFeed when their reporting was flat out wrong.
People in this country don't trust the media, and once again, they are given reason to believe that the media is putting out nonsense because they want to get clicks and make money.
Today, let's take a look at some of Michael Cohen's testimony, and then look at how the media is trying to protect themselves as they push fake news.
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First, let's take a look at some reporting from Vox.com.
What Michael Cohen's testimony means for the Russia investigation.
Cohen offered intriguing new information, but he clearly hasn't made Mueller's case.
During his house testimony Wednesday, Michael Cohen offered new details about several matters of importance to special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, but said he knew of no direct evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.
Cohen described Trump's efforts to mislead the American public about Russia-related matters, and said that he has suspicions about whether collusion took place.
The first bit I want to address.
Cohen said that Trump, quote, did not directly tell me to lie to Congress.
That's in reference to the Trump Tower Moscow meeting, because that's not how he operates.
There were many people in media who quickly called out BuzzFeed, because this definitively proves BuzzFeed was wrong.
The Washington Post wrote this story.
After Cohen's hearing, the BuzzFeed bombshell that Mueller disputed looks better and worse.
In mid-January, a BuzzFeed news report hit the news cycle like a mile-wide asteroid landing on Earth.
Its assertion was stunning that President Trump had directed his fixer, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress in 2017 about negotiations the previous year to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, and that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III possessed documentation of this, and further, that Cohen had acknowledged those instructions in interviews with Mueller's office.
Suddenly, the word suborning was wildly trending, because to induce someone to lie under oath is to suborn perjury, which happens to be a felony.
But then the explosive story seemed to fall apart.
Other news organizations were unable to match it.
They could not report their own versions of it with their own sources.
And then, stunningly, Mueller's office issued a brief, devastating statement disputing aspects of the BuzzFeed report.
Following the statement from Mueller's office, The writers of the piece, Jason Leopold and Anthony Cormier, as well as the editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed News, Ben Smith, defended their sources and defended their reporting, even though the office said no.
Even though all of these other outlets were saying, we can't confirm this.
And even after Cohen, Appearing on MSNBC, Aaron Matt of The Nation highlighted this statement from Ben Smith, saying, On Friday, Buzzfeed Ben told Chris Hayes that the first of the core central pieces of that Buzzfeed story was that Cohen thought he had been told to lie, and that Cohen had confirmed that to Congress.
He certainly said that.
He used the word told.
And Matt points out that's false.
First, that was not the core central piece of the BuzzFeed story.
Recall what BuzzFeed reported, not that Cohen thought he had been told to lie, but that Trump directed Cohen to lie and that Trump was explicitly telling Cohen to lie.
The New Yorker recently published an interview with Jason Leopold, who was one of the authors, titled, A BuzzFeed Reporter Explains His Controversial Reporting on Michael Cohen and Donald Trump.
In the interview, he says, I will say that I have evidence that what he said to Congress as it pertains to the story that Anthony Cormier and I wrote was correct.
But whether he has anything that's dishonest, I mean, it may relate to things that I am writing in the future, I don't have anything to say about that.
He states, clearly, that what Cohen said to Congress was correct.
He goes on.
When questioned, do you believe that what Cohen said backs up your story?
It seems like you just said that.
Yes, Cohen confirmed the central thesis of our report.
The president met with him before his false testimony, White House lawyers edited his false testimony before he gave it, and Cohen understood that the The president was directing him to lie to Congress, but the New Yorker pushed back, saying, in the piece you wrote, in what was the central thesis of your story, that this was, quote, the first known example of Trump explicitly telling a subordinate to lie directly about his own dealings with Russia.
Was that language accurate?
Leopold said, So you know, Cohen totally understood that he was being directed by Trump to lie to Congress.
He did not mention how many meetings or explicit words that the president may have spoken that led him to lie.
And you know, more may come out, but Cohen himself made it clear in his testimony that he and Trump both understood this to be explicit, and he should lie to Congress, and he made it clear that it was an explicit command.
And they pushed back further.
Do you think him saying, quote, he did not directly tell me to lie contradicts at all your writing that this was the first known example of Trump explicitly telling a subordinate to lie?
In fact, Cohen was asked several times to clarify.
You stated that Trump never directed you to lie to Congress.
Is that correct?
That's correct.
But he never directed you to lie to Congress.
He did not use those words, no.
And at this point, it's mindless semantics.
They're trying to justify their report, which was incorrect, which was refuted by Mueller's office, and refuted in congressional testimony.
They are trying to defend their reporting.
That was wrong.
And this is what companies do.
They will not take responsibility for publishing fake news.
How many news organizations immediately apologized and retracted following the misreporting in Covington?
Very few.
In fact, many of the tweets and the stories are still live.
And only after a lawsuit was filed did the Washington Post issue an editorial note about their misreporting of the facts at the time.
BuzzFeed's initial report is titled, President Trump Directed His attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about the Moscow Tower project.
And the direct quote, Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress about the Trump Tower in Moscow.
Their title directly refuted by Cohen's testimony.
Yet even the editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed is still maintaining this lie.
This example is just something we were able to catch because Cohen testified.
There are many more stories like this.
The media has a history of lying and refusing to correct the record.
And this is why Americans do not trust the media.
It's why trust in media continues to decline, and in my opinion, it's a contributing factor to why many of these media companies are falling apart and laying people off.
Keeping in mind, BuzzFeed just laid off a massive amount of its staff members a month ago.
Along with that story, Cohen also testified that he knows of no direct evidence that Trump or his campaign colluded with Russia.
Yet this keeps being pushed by MSNBC, CNN, and other mainstream outlets.
Glenn Greenwald tweeted, I'm not saying this to be mean, I genuinely feel sorry for MSNBC viewers who have had their brains filled with stuff like this for two straight years and uncritically believed what they were hearing.
The damage to the discourse will never be undone.
Greenwald also tweeted, Michael Cohen, Trump's most trusted and intimate fixer, Who now hates him, was A. Never in Prague, knows of no blackmail leverage the Kremlin has, and never heard any attempts to conspire with Russia over the election.
The media's silence over these crucial facts is deafening.
And finally, NBC doing its best to prepare its audience for what they think is coming, and trying to figure out how to bridge the gap between the expectations they stoked for two straight years, with the harsh reality they obviously believe is imminent.
Stories that are emerging now reflected in this narrative from time, why the Mueller report might disappoint almost everybody.
The story says, after endless hype, special counsel Robert Mueller may be about to submit his report.
It is impossible to know what his conclusions will be, but after so much speculation, one outcome seems likely.
Mueller will disappoint just about everyone, especially President Trump's critics, and it won't be his fault.
This is due in part to Trump's successful disinformation crusade, which has worked to raise a nearly impossible and definitely illogical bar for Mueller to clear, proving collusion and charging a grand criminal conspiracy involving the Trump campaign and the Russian government.
But it is also due to Trump's critics, who have responded to Trump's no collusion mantra by shouting back, yes, collusion.
Oh, I get it.
It was Trump's fault for denying that he colluded with Russia when his lawyer says he never colluded with Russia or he has no evidence of that fact.
Yet the media uncritically pushed the narrative endlessly.
And even after their stories are discredited, even after BuzzFeed is discredited, they uphold the lie.
This is the problem we are facing with journalism in this country, and I am sick and tired of it.
It is the nonsense.
It is the desire to maintain this visage of credibility that doesn't exist.
People don't trust you anymore because you do this.
BuzzFeed should come clean and say our reporting was wrong.
We got it wrong, and they should apologize for it.
But by refusing to correct, by blaming Trump instead for the Russian narrative, All this does is prove to the American people that the media is full of dishonest liars.
At the same time, I want to make sure it's clear.
There are many people in media, especially left-wing reporters like Glenn Greenwald and Aaron Maté, who have no problem calling out the complete and total bullcrap.
And I respect them for it.
Look, you're not always going to be right.
We can't expect the media to know everything all the time.
But we should absolutely expect them to apologize, retract, and correct when they get the stories wrong.
But they don't.
Sometimes they do.
I respect them when they do.
And when they do, it's evidence that they're trying to do right.
But look at what happened with Covington.
A month goes by.
Much of the fake news is still live.
Look at what's going on now with Cohen and Russian Collusion.
They just double down because they refuse to accept they pushed lies for years.
BuzzFeed refuses to accept, even in the face of Mueller's office saying you were wrong, they refuse to back down.
Even in the face of Cohen saying, no, I was never directly told a lie, they refuse to back down and they try changing the wording of what they claimed.
As reported by Aaron Maté.
So no, I'm not going to give the media the benefit of the doubt, and I don't know what to tell you.
Because we really do need the media to protect democracy.
We need media to act as watchdogs, to put power in check, to call out the nonsense.
But they aren't doing it.
There are a lot of independent voices, and there are good journalists who try.
There are good journalists working within mainstream news sources who try.
But right now, we are just seeing the worst of the worst, and I don't know what else to tell you.
You can comment below and let me know what you think.
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