CNN has a problem.
One of its Russia investigation scoops is falling apart, and all because a person who claims he was a source for the story keeps changing his tune. In short, it’s a mess.
Lanny Davis, who represents President Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, said this week that he was an anonymous source for a CNN report titled, “Cohen claims Trump knew in advance of 2016 Trump Tower meeting.” But Davis said last week on CNN that he was not a source for the story. If he’s telling the truth now, it raises serious questions about the part of the CNN report that claimed explicitly that Davis “declined to comment.”
CNN reported in July that Cohen was willing to testify that then-presidential candidate Trump knew “in advance about the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower in which Russians were expected to offer his campaign dirt on Hillary Clinton.” The report leaned entirely on “sources with knowledge.” CNN also reported that Cohen said he was willing to “make that assertion to special counsel Robert Mueller,” who is investigating Russia’s reported interference in the 2016 presidential election.
However, Axios reported last week that Cohen testified last year before Congress that he had no idea “whether then-candidate Donald Trump had foreknowledge of the 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russians.” Davis told Axios that the CNN Trump Tower story was bogus.
“It was painful,” he said after being asked why he and Cohen didn’t do more to dispute CNN’s reporting. “We were not the source, we could not confirm, and we could not correct. We had to be silent because of the sensitivity needed in the middle of a criminal investigation.”
Here’s where things get extra complicated for Davis and CNN.
When the New York Post reported in July that Cohen was allegedly willing to testify against his former client, it “confirmed” the story anonymously with Davis. Then came the Axios report. The New York Post followed-up last week with an article outing Davis as the source for its July Trump Tower story. The paper reported, “Davis, speaking on the record, apologized for confirming something he did not know to be true.”
He told the New York Post, “I regret that I wasn’t clear enough to The Post. I should have been more clear. I could not independently confirm the information in the CNN story. I’m sorry that I left that impression. I wasn’t at the meeting. The only person who could confirm that information is my client.”
Davis also maintained last week that he was not a source for CNN’s original Trump Tower reporting.
“I think the reporting of the story got mixed up in the course of a criminal investigation,” Davis told CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “We were not the source of the story and in the course of a criminal investigation, the advice we were given — those of us dealing with the media is that we could not do anything other than stay silent.”
Enter BuzzFeed News, which reported Monday:
Davis told BuzzFeed News that he did, in fact, speak anonymously to CNN for its story, which cited “sources with knowledge” — meaning more than one person.
“I made a mistake,” Davis said, adding in reference to his interview with Cooper, “I did not mean to be cute.”
CNN is standing by the Cohen story. A spokesperson told the Washington Post, “We … are confident in our reporting of it.”
The biggest problem here for CNN is reconciling Davis’ remarks to BuzzFeed with the part of the July scoop that claimed he “declined to comment.” If Davis was a source for the story, the “declined to comment” bit is deeply misleading at best, an outright deception at worst.
But this all depends on whether Davis is telling the truth. Just because Lanny Davis says something is true, it doesn’t make it so. Maybe he was lying then. Maybe he is lying now. The same goes for his client, the president, and the president’s attorneys. We have no reason to trust any of them.
