When a BuzzFeed reporter first sought comment on the news outlet's explosive report that President Donald Trump had directed his lawyer to lie to Congress, the spokesman for special counsel Robert Mueller III treated the request as he would almost any other story.
The reporter informed Mueller's spokesman, Peter Carr, that he and a colleague had "a story coming stating that Michael Cohen was directed by President Trump himself to lie to Congress about his negotiations related to the Trump Moscow project," according to copies of their emails provided by a BuzzFeed spokesman. Importantly, the reporter made no reference to the special counsel's office specifically or evidence that Mueller's investigators had uncovered.