Mueller's office says BuzzFeed report inaccurate
The special counsel's office has issued a rare public statement disputing the accuracy of a news report saying that President Donald Trump told his personal attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress.
The statement by Robert Mueller's office on Friday night doesn't cite any specific errors.
Spokesperson Peter Carr says, "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."
Trump's personal attorney has also denied that the president told his former legal fixer, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress about the details of a Trump business proposal in Russia.
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Rudy Giuliani says in a statement that "Any suggestion-- from any source-- that the President counseled Michael Cohen to lie is categorically false." Giuliani is responding to a Buzzfeed News report saying that Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress.
The report was based on information from two law enforcement officials with direct knowledge of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. The officials are not named in the story.
The report says Cohen said Trump directed him to lie and investigators have additional documents and testimony backing that up.
President Trump accused his former personal attorney of "lying to reduce his jail time!"
On Fox News Channel, White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said that the BuzzFeed story was "absolutely ludicrous," but he repeatedly refused to deny the central allegation: that Trump directed Cohen to lie.
One of Gidley's interviewers noted at one point: "That was not a denial of my question."
The Democratic chairmen of two House committees pledged Friday to investigate the report, which cites two unnamed law enforcement officials.