His Special Counsel Peter Carr said: “Buzzfeed’s description of specific statements to the Special Counsel’s Office, and characterisation of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony is “not accurate”. This statement is very rare – the Special Counsel’s Office has almost never commented on published stories. Mr Cohen pleaded guilty of making false statements to Congress about the Russia investigation in November.
He had already pleaded guilty in a separate case of eight counts including campaign finance violations.
The story which claimed he was orderd to lie by the President, published by Buzzfeed on Thursday night, lead Democrats to begin touting it as grounds for impeaching Trump.
Reporters Jason Leopold and Anthony Cormier claimed that Mr Cohen has told special counsel investigators that “after the election, the President personally instructed him to lie – by claiming that negotiations for a Trump development project in Moscow ended months earlier than they actually did – in order to obscure Trump’s involvement.”
They attributed their claim to two law enforcement sources.
The sources also allegedly said the special counsel’s office had evidence from Trump company emails, text messages and other documents.
Mr Carr did not explain which part of the story they were calling untrue.
The President did not immediately respond to the statement, but he retweeted several supporters.
One such supporter was TV host John Cardillo, who tweeted: “I told you all that the BuzzFeed story was nonsense.”
Meanwhile, his son Donald Trump Jr tweeted his response – 139 ‘crying with laughter’ emojis and a thumbs up sign.
More to follow…