For much of the past 20 months, President Donald Trump and his administration have insisted that, for all of the smoke surrounding his 2016 campaign, there was no fire. …
That very well might have changed Thursday night, with this report from BuzzFeed:
"President Donald Trump directed his longtime attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, according to two federal law enforcement officials involved in an investigation of the matter.
“Trump also supported a plan, set up by Cohen, to visit Russia during the presidential campaign, in order to personally meet President Vladimir Putin and jump-start the tower negotiations. ‘Make it happen,’ the sources said Trump told Cohen.”
The BuzzFeed story also claims that Cohen confirmed this information to special counsel Robert Mueller after “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.”
It’s hard to overstate what a big deal that is. …
Don’t take my word for it. Check out this exchange between Democratic Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Attorney General nominee William Barr during his confirmation hearings earlier this week…:
Klobuchar: The President persuading a person to commit perjury would be obstruction, is that right?
Barr: Well, yes. Well, any person who persuades another to – yeah."
Klobuchar: "You also said that a President or any person convincing a witness to change testimony would be obstruction, is that right?
Barr: Yes." …
The Trump response to all of this? To attack Cohen. …
On Friday, Giuliani added in a statement, “Any suggestion – from any source – that the President counseled Michael Cohen to lie is categorically false. Michael Cohen is a convicted criminal and a liar.”
The problem for Giuliani is that the BuzzFeed report doesn’t hinge on Cohen. It says that the special counsel unearthed the evidence that Trump had told Cohen to lie through “multiple witnesses from the Trump Organization and internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents.” Mueller’s office only went to Cohen to confirm/admit he actually did it. The special counsel’s office didn’t get the information from Cohen. That fact makes Giuliani’s claim that Cohen is a proven liar – which he is! – largely meaningless. …
If the BuzzFeed report is true (and yes that remains an “if” since CNN has not corroborated the reporting), then the entire Russia conversation changes. …
Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse agreed, tweeting, "If this is true, this is plain, slam-dunk, criminal obstruction of justice (18 U.S.C. 1505, 1512), subornation of perjury (18 U.S.C. 1622), conspiracy (18 U.S.C. 371) and likely aiding and abetting perjury (18 U.S.C. 2)."
The “if true” part is, of course, the key. BuzzFeed has put the credibility of its entire organization on the line here. To make an allegation that the President of the United States purposely obstructed justice in an investigation into Russia’s attempts to interfere in a presidential election is a massive deal – and the sort of thing that, if wrong, can do irreparable damage to a company’s reputation.
But if the BuzzFeed article is right – and one of the reporters who bylined the story insisted on CNN Friday morning that the information in the piece is “rock solid” and that the sourcing “goes beyond” the two sources cited – then this is the smoking gun…
One of the biggest takeaways from this editorial is the fact that William Barr, who will most likely become our next Attorney General, went on record agreeing with Senator Klobuchar that, "The President persuading a person to commit perjury would be obstruction."
And according to another CNN report, Lindsey Graham also solicited the same response from Barr:
