President Donald Trump took a victory lap on social media Friday in the wake of a statement from special counsel Robert Mueller’s office that a BuzzFeed report about him was “not accurate.”
Trump crowed that it was a “sad day for journalism, but a great day for our Country!”
BuzzFeed reported Thursday that Trump had directed his personal attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about his involvement in a Moscow real estate project during the presidential campaign. The article triggered calls from Democrats for the president’s resignation or impeachment.
But in a rare statement from Mueller’s team, a spokesman told BuzzFeed on Friday that its “description of specific statements” and its “characterization of documents and testimony” obtained by the special counsel’s office was “not accurate.”
The statement did not directly address the key point of the article, nor did it mention the Trump Tower deal in Moscow.
BuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith said in response that the publication stood by its reporting and asked the special counsel to “make clear what he’s disputing.”
BuzzFeed relied on two unnamed law enforcement sources involved in the investigation.
Trump also slammed BuzzFeed in his tweet as the first to report on the damning 2016 intelligence document about him compiled by former British agent Christopher Steele.
Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani responded with his own tweets Friday, calling on the Department of Justice to “reveal the leakers of this false BuzzFeed story which the press and Democrats gleefully embraced.” He said the media’s “hysterical desire to destroy this President has gone too far.”
