BuzzFeed Stands By Its Erroneous Reporting Even Though The Special Counsel Denied It

We’ve been hearing all about BuzzFeed’s “bombshell” story for a solid day now. Long story short, BuzzFeed published an article that accused President Trump of instructing his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress. It was immediately fishy, because one of the authors admitted that he had never even SEEN any evidence.

BuzzfeedNews Bombshell Reporter: No We Have Not Seen the Evidence Supporting Our Report https://t.co/zzQ3zFCW38 pic.twitter.com/QH43ojbNus

— Mediaite (@Mediaite) January 18, 2019

His co-author completely contradicted him. It’s super awkward.

BuzzFeed’s @a_cormier_ told CNN this morning that they have not actually seen the documents they’re reporting on.

But his colleague, @JasonLeopold, who cowrote the piece, just told MSNBC: “I’ll just say we’ve seen documents, we’ve been briefed on documents.” pic.twitter.com/cQtlj0SdYo

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) January 18, 2019

So…who’s telling the truth here?

It gets worse. Last night, the Special Counsel totally disputed BuzzFeed’s story.

UPDATE: A spokesperson for the special counsel is disputing BuzzFeed News’ report. https://t.co/BEoMKiDypn pic.twitter.com/GWWfGtyhaE

— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) January 19, 2019

In other words…

I commend Bob Mueller’s office for correcting the BuzzFeed false story that Pres. Trump encouraged Cohen to lie. I ask the press to take heed that their hysterical desire to destroy this President has gone too far. They pursued this without critical analysis all day. #FAKENEWS

— Rudy Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) January 19, 2019

Now the DOJ must reveal the leakers of this false BuzzFeed story which the press and Democrats gleefully embraced. And maybe House Dems should wait to investigate until the Mueller report is filed. 4 have started already.There may be nothing to legitimately investigate.

— Rudy Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) January 19, 2019

If the media does not spend — minute for minute — the same amount of time on the death of the latest #FakeNews from @BuzzFeed (RIP) that they did speculating about “IF IT’S TRUE 😱!” then they should quit even pretending to be unbiased. What a disgrace. #RIPbuzzfeed

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) January 19, 2019

You’d think that BuzzFeed would apologize or, in the very least, come up with some sort of stellar explanation.

Instead, they’re going with this:

In response to the statement tonight from the Special Counsel's spokesman: We stand by our reporting and the sources who informed it, and we urge the Special Counsel to make clear what he's disputing.

— Ben Smith (@BuzzFeedBen) January 19, 2019

Oh. So…we’re just expected to believe BuzzFeed, because they say so? Is that what they’re getting out? Are they accusing the almighty Special Counsel of lying?

Just apologize, you dishonest freaks.