UPDATED: Mueller Nukes Buzzfeed--Why?
Conservative blogs are accurately characterizing the Special Counsel office's statement re Buzzfeed's fake news story as "rare." As Tucker Carlson put it, Mueller's office has virtually never commented on anything, but in this statement Mueller's office flatly rejects Buzzfeed's claim that President Trump personally directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress regarding the Trump Moscow deal--which was basically moribund by the time 2016 rolled around. Fox News says it nicely :
The statement is remarkable in that Mueller's team rarely issues statements in response to news stories. But BuzzFeed's story sparked immense interest from Democrats, who called for renewed investigations and even suggested the allegations could be a basis for impeachment proceedings.
For example, Adam Schiff immediately rushed out onto the limb:
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., whose committee is already investigating the president and his ties to Russia, called the allegations in the report “the most serious to date.”
“The allegation that the president of the United States may have suborned perjury before our committee in an effort to curtail the investigation and cover up his business dealings with Russia is among the most serious to date,” Schiff said in a statement. “We will do what’s necessary to find out if it’s true.”
And that was a crowded limb:
This may be the smoking gun in the Russia investigation - CNNPolitics
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/18/politics/buzzfeed-trump-cohen-russia/
Trump Reportedly Told Cohen to Lie to Congress
www.nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/01/trump-reportedly-told-cohen-to-lie-to-congress.html
If Trump Told Cohen to Lie, Impeachment Is Coming | WIRED
https://www.wired.com/story/trump-impeachment-mueller-cohen/...
Trump had Michael Cohen lie to Congress about Moscow Trump ...
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-had-michael-cohen-lie-to-congress-about-moscow-trump-tower-project-buzzfeed/
Mueller filing says Manafort lied about contacts with Trump ...
https://www.msnbc.com/the-beat-with-ari-melber/watch/mueller-filing-says-manafort-lied-about-contacts-with-trump-administration-while-under-indictment-1391952451852
After Schiff and the rest rushed out onto this limb, Team Mueller promptly sawed that limb off:
“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,” Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller’s office, said Friday.
Clearly the most interesting aspect to this tempest in a teapot is precisely the fact that Team Mueller so promptly rejected a fake news story--something they have rarely done. The question is: Why?
This is pure speculation, but I do wonder whether Team Mueller issued this rare refutation of a patently fake news story in anticipation of the confirmation of Bill Barr as Attorney General. Mueller has played fast and loose with leaks and rumors over the past two years, but I suspect he knows the rules of the Russia Hoax game are about to change, and that Barr intends to keep him on a short leash.
UPDATE: Today, 1/20/19, Maria Bartiromo interviewed Congressman John Ratcliffe from TX, a very experience Federal prosecutor. Bartiromo asked Ratcliffe what was behind the unusual step Mueller took in repudiating the Buzzfeed fake news re Cohen and Trump. Ratcliffe was in agreement with our analysis. He stated that Mueller's action should be tied in to what happened "earlier in the week"--the testimony of AG nominee Bill Barr before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Ratcliffe posed the question, Why did Mueller speak out about this particular false report when their have been "dozens" of such reports in the past concerning which Mueller has remained silent? Ratcliffe answered his own question: This isn't such a coincidence; Mueller's repudiation happened two days after the first time that an AG nominee said, "I'm going to grade the Special Counsel's homework, and I'm going to get to the bottom of all of this, and I'm going to get to a fair and expeditious conclusion to this matter." Ratcliffe added that "this wasn't so much a coincidence as a cause and effect." Ratcliffe then tied the bogus Buzzfeed report in to the the Cohen plea agreement--the fact that if Cohen had claimed that Trump had suborned perjury, the Cohen plea would have led with that claim. But that's not what happened.