Oddly Quiet Here

[jamil]

 

[ArcadiaGP]

Granted, it's Buzzfeed... but uh...

Big enough story that we probably won't forget about it for at least 4 days.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/articl...ssia-cohen-moscow-tower-mueller-investigation

 

[actaeon277]

Do we have to click on Buzzfeed? Or can you just give us an overview?

 

[ghitch75]

here...

[h=1]President Trump Directed His Attorney Michael Cohen To Lie To Congress About The Moscow Tower[/h]

 

[ArcadiaGP]

BuzzfeedNews Bombshell Reporter: No We Have Not Seen the Evidence Supporting Our Report

Report first, issue corrections/retractions later..

 

[DoggyDaddy]

BuzzfeedNews Bombshell Reporter: No We Have Not Seen the Evidence Supporting Our Report

Report first, issue corrections/retractions later..

Hasn't stopped MSM from running with it. The Today Show crew was almost breathless in their reporting of it this morning.

 

[HoughMade]

Regardless of the truth of any of this, I am disappointed in Trump's judgment about who he chose to work with him.

 

[T.Lex]

Cohen was a solid fixer. Basically took a federal special prosecutor to dig up all this stuff. Even as a campaign violation issue, I'm not sure a "normal" investigation would've gotten this far.

 

[ArcadiaGP]

Both Trump and Guliani encouraging investigators to look at the family member of a witness who has testified against him.

That feels weird... but oddly normal.


There are issues with the story itself:

1) No documentary evidence for supposed directive is provided.
2) BuzzFeed sources are all 100% anonymous.
3) Michael Cohen is a serial liar.
4) It is not illegal to do business in Russia.
5) Moscow Trump Tower project never got off the ground.

 

[ArcadiaGP]

Joe Cunningham on the Buzzfeed story

So, here is where I am on the BuzzFeed story. Bear with me a moment as I try to lay this out as best as I can.

BuzzFeed News drops a major story at 10:11 p.m. Thursday night. The story claims that there is evidence Trump told Cohen to lie to Congress. The story bases this claim on information given to them by two unnamed sources.

The story isn't about what Cohen is claiming. The sources are saying Cohen told Mueller this and it was backed up in Mueller's interviews with folks from the Trump Organization.

There's two red flags for me. Unnamed sources and Mueller talking to Trump Organization people. The latter is a flag because that in and of itself is a major story that no one else had broken.

You even had an executive producer from ABC say none of their folks had heard anything like that, and no other outlet has verified it with their own sources. That's not to say BuzzFeed isn't capable of beating those outlets, but it seems like a major development.

Next, I am wary of any story with Jason Leopold's name attached. He has a history that, strangely enough, involves federal investigations, unnamed sources, and documentation that isn't provided within the stories he writes.

To complement the past, Leopold in one interview appears to contradict his co-author, Anthony Cormier. Cormier told CNN they hadn't seen documents, Leopold says they had.

Maybe they were referencing different things, but the lack of clarity is troubling at best.

At this point, all the warning signs are there:
1. Confirmation Bias
2. Unnamed/Anonymous Sourcing
3. No Documentation
4. Writer With A History Of Making Things Up

And yet, the bigger issue here is the claim itself. It is too big a claim to simply dismiss. If there is any truth to it whatsoever, then it's a major problem for Trump. So, I can't just pan it as "fake news."

What I do know is this: There is nothing that we can really take at face value until the investigation is done, and nothing short of a full, unredacted release of Mueller's report will satisfy the hunger for truth we're all feeling right now.

In other words, only Mueller can set us free. That is too much power for one man to wield, but here we are.

 

[Libertarian01]

This just in: Mueller says BuzzFeed isn't on target! Mueller actually broke silence.

https://apnews.com/58e8eff8dabb4b5289e4db16435a2b02

We don't know what the details are yet but it seems BuzzFeed leapt before they looked.

Doug

 

[jamil]

This just in: Mueller says BuzzFeed isn't on target! Mueller actually broke silence.

https://apnews.com/58e8eff8dabb4b5289e4db16435a2b02

We don't know what the details are yet but it seems BuzzFeed leapt before they looked.

Doug

It kinda doesn't matter. The psychology of the piece is locked in. A retraction doesn't undue the feelings people have after hearing a story like that. I don't know how many times I've had conversations with people where they believe something is true based on some news story that was later retracted, and they still believe it after reading about the retraction! This is crazy ****.

 

[d.kaufman]

It kinda doesn't matter. The psychology of the piece is locked in. A retraction doesn't undue the feelings people have after hearing a story like that. I don't know how many times I've had conversations with people where they believe something is true based on some news story that was later retracted, and they still believe it after reading about the retraction! This is crazy ****.

Exactly! And there should be something put in place to stop this crap, from these so called journalists, from dropping these stories without any facts to back them up. The media is truly "fake news" and unbelievable anymore. It does nothing but fuel the divide in this country!

 

[jamil]

Like for example, someone at work might repeat something they've heard on the news based on one of those reports. Like the Dossier. And I'd be like, why do you believe that? And they'd say well, there's this dossier and it says this and that, and it means that Trump was <repeats news talking points>. And I'd be like, um, the dossier was fake. The stories around it have pretty much been retracted. No one is reporting on the dossier anymore because it's embarrassingly fake news. So why do you still believe this thing? Well, because... <repeat the talking points based on the dossier>!

 

[ArcadiaGP]

Time for Buzzfeed to burn their sources.

****ing embarrassing.

Edit: I mean, it would be embarrassing, for those capable of being embarrassed.

 

[jamil]

Time for Buzzfeed to burn their sources.

****ing embarrassing.

Edit: I mean, it would be embarrassing, for those capable of being embarrassed.

I don't know. I kinda don't think they're all that embarrassed about it. They may not think they did nothing wrong. Go listen to the discussion between Sam Harris and Ezra Klein. I thought after listening to that **** show, that if Klein ever went back and listened to that again he should be too embarrassed to show his face in public again. Klein was completely out of touch with reality. Either that or he was lying the whole time. But whether he was lying or was just out of touch with reality, I really think he would not believe he should have been embarrassed. That dude was a smug little ********** the whole conversation. After the Sam Harris thing I strongly suspected there's an agenda with him. There's no embarrassment for making a dishonest play from the book.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

This just in: Mueller says BuzzFeed isn't on target! Mueller actually broke silence.

https://apnews.com/58e8eff8dabb4b5289e4db16435a2b02

We don't know what the details are yet but it seems BuzzFeed [STRIKE]leapt before they looked.
[/STRIKE] made their story up out of whole cloth.
Doug

FIFY...