Yes, the story makes sense given 1) Trump’s longstanding history of being a lying, secretive control freak, and 2) the knowledge that Cohen wouldn’t wipe his ass without checking with Trump first.
But there are reasons to be cautious on this story:
- One of the co-authors is Jason Leopold, he of “Rove-being-frog-marched-out-of-White-House-in-handcuffs” Fitzmas fame during the Valerie Plame case. Leopold claimed to have multiple sources on that story.
- A few weeks ago, we were all agog here over a report in The Guardian claiming that Manafort met with Assange in London. The longer that story went unconfirmed by another independent source, the more doubt was cast on the report. Ultimately, the story proved not to be true.
- The two reporters, Leopold and Anthony Cormier, appear to have stated facts in direct opposition to one another since breaking the story. Cormier told CNN’s New Day that the reporters had not seen documents supporting the claims of their two law enforcement sources. Leopold said the opposite: “We have seen documents.” So which is it?
This story needs to be confirmed by another, independent source before we celebrate.
Yes, this story makes sense, given all we know. But let’s hope this gets confirmed in short order. Until then, I urge caution.
Friday, Jan 18, 2019 · 9:25:57 PM +00:00 · Bob Johnson
As cityduck notes in a comment, another good recent example is the McClatchy story that Cohen had been to Prague, a story that confirmed a data point in the Steele dossier. That reporting has also never been confirmed.
Saturday, Jan 19, 2019 · 5:40:44 AM +00:00 · Bob Johnson
Update #3: Back to my original caution. (Sorry, I was out.) We’ll see how this plays out, but having someone from Mueller’s office actually speak out about this certainly should lead to more caution. Way too early to pop the corks.