This is a reporter who has already fabricated stories in the past. He has zero leeway here.

Mueller's team is confident they got a confirmable fact wrong, and broke their longstanding press silence to say so.

This has given Trump ammunition for years to come. This is a fucking fiasco, and Leopold can't ever work in journalism again.

That is literally what the Special Counsel's office said in response to the story. Why the fuck are you defending this hack who has burned us in the past?

That's not accurate.

Oh my God this is 2006 all over again.

They got the story wrong

Merry Fitzmas!

I hope you'll be okay.

If it wasn't for the fact that I remember the lengths to which some went to excuse his Rove fuck-up.

Some of the theories about how Mueller's statement isn't damaging and may even be signaling that the story is even worse that what BuzzFeed reported are, simply put, insane. And the attempts to parse Mueller's words to give them some inconsequential meaning is merely desperate.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Mueller's office spanked BuzzFeed. Period.

How long are you willing to wait?

It might not hurt for long, but it will make the charges coming later for people to believe.

Greatly appreciated.

for DU’ers reading the thread now who might think you were talking to Recursion. You weren’t talking to Recursion

He says the Mueller statement leaves the core of the Buzzfeed story intact.

So you're wrong. I'd suggest deleting this ridiculous thread.

Buzzfeed ran a story by a reporter who has a history of fabricating quotes. Mueller's office broke their longstanding silence to say that they got quotes wrong. Their statement was absolutely unambiguous and absolutely damning. Mueller's office is saying he is in a place to know that components of the Compier/Leopold story are factually false. That's it. Game over. Trump will trumpet this shit to Kingdom Come.

Am I the only one here who remembers 2006?

He thinks the entire investigation is a witch hunt. He has called Mueller conflicted. What's Trump going to do now -
praise Mueller for putting the "fake news" in line? That would only give the special council even more credibility.

Jason Leopold is a reporter with an acknowledged history of fabricating quotes. At least one quote in this story was fabricated, per Mueller's team.

This isn't rocket science.

with regards to the investigation? I don't really care what his opinion is of the news media. With 7,000+ documented lies, Trump has no room to talk.

You're not Trump's base or the average checked-out American, so you think like YOU do. But this gives Trump & his goonies tons of talking points to repeat over and over again to those still listening to him, even if they don't like him. The investigation is only going to matter if the outcome is taken seriously. Now, Trump has another magic trick to pull over on the American people who aren't hanging out on Twitter or here.

Guys, get out of your bubble here on DU. This forum does NOT represent the country.

about that too much because even if there was nothing...they'd come up with something.

The country is significantly more pto-Mueller and even pro-media than it is pro-Trump. One news story (that Buzzfeed still vehemently stands behind) isn't suddenly going to swing the momentum to Cheeto Shitbag. It doesn't work that way, no matter how many talking points he and his goons spew to the MAGAts.

One could argue that Trump praising special councel this morning hurts his entire "witch hunt" argument and gives credibility to Mueller.

Because Trump's in office and doing damage every single day. This story was what actually prompted some Dems to shift tune and start calling for impeachment when it first came out. Now, they may (most likely will) back off and will be more timid the next scoop that drops, even if it comes with a photo of Trump hanging with his boss surrounded by Russian hookers peeing over their heads.

So, I don't care about the voodoo of what Trump says, etc. or what the right says, etc. - I'm concerned because it DOES hurt the overall process of getting an insane man off the world stage.

So, call me Chicken Little if you want and I'll bock bock.

I see a nuanced statement about sourcing. Maybe Mueller is just saying they didn't get it from SCO.

when they broke the Watergate scandal.

Particularly with the byline of a reporter who has fabricated quotes before. Why is this so hard for people to understand?

The statement implies that whoever sourced Buzzfeed didn't understand what they saw...

Thread.........

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Thank you

Drumpf will likely be tweeting about this, because he's an ass................ but Buzzfeed willingly stepping in front of the public scutiny cannon to admit they fucked up doesn't do much to support drumpf's "fake news!" cries. In fact their honestly only hurts it. If the news was all fake and fabricated they wouldn't have said anything.

Buzzfeed ruining their own credibility doesn't make drumpf more honest.

they didn't admit it so much as acknowledge that Mueller's team SAID they screwed up............ But either way they are being forthcoming about the claims that contradict their own reporting which was the point i was making about drumpf having no "fake news" leg to stand on.

No matter what anyone thinks...

This is now ammunition for the right at a time that is so urgently critical. Forget about WHO reported this. It doesn't matter.

What matters is that this will be dumped into the vortex of utter fucking chaos this country has fallen into. What matters is that now nothing is going to be taken seriously.

I'm serious. This is very very bad no matter how anyone spins it.

But I really beg everyone to stop finger pointing. It's been reported and Mueller's office has disputed it, albeit in a vague, nebulous manner. The optics are there now and Trump, the smokescreen artist, will use it to his advantage.

I'm really very depressed and getting offline except to lurk for awhile. It's just too much of a high and then a crash.

That Mueller's office is accurate and truthful? good luck with that.

as anything other than a public spanking of buzzfeed have a familiar ring to those of us who remember the attempts some here made to defend Truthout for the Rove indictment story.

The only thing that does matter is what sworn testimony is given before a grand jury, or before a judge, or before a trial judge and jury, or before a Congressional investigative committee. Those are the only things that can lead to convictions, unless I'm missing something there (I'm not an attorney).

Those are the only things that may ultimately punish Trump and a number of his associates for any crimes for which they have been indicted, and then their being removed from power.

An impeachment of Trump would be good but does not necessarily expose and punish any and all crimes he may have committed and may not stop his administration's deconstructing of our government. It would, however be sweet revenge for his non-stop lying to the public.

For what little it's worth, Buzzfeed did acknowledge the statement from Mr. Mueller's office in an updated article. See.....

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonleopold/trump-russia-cohen-moscow-tower-mueller-investigation

............

Mueller's statement is as vague as possible. Leopold's editor apparently knows who the sources are and feels confident about them. So really, we have no idea what the deal is.

That said, I'm inherently suspicious of anyone who decides to go to Jason F'ing Leopold at Buzzfeed to leak what could be the most important dirt on a president in the history of the country. That's only a few steps above going to the National Enquirer.

I'm a little puzzled why, if Mueller felt so strongly about this reporting, he didn't make his opinion clear to the reporters before the story ran (unless they never asked his office for comment, which is irresponsible).

I'm also a little suspicious of how the Trump dumpster divers all went after BuzzFeed in unison rather than just denying the story as fake news like they do with everything else. I'm not usually a conspiracy nut, but I'm getting a disturbing feeling this might have been a planted story. Who better to plant it with than a guy who has a history of messing up stories.