Carl Bernstein traded barbs with President Trump Wednesday after the president first lashed out at the journalist of Watergate fame for a disputed report regarding what Trump knew in the lead-up to the controversial Trump Tower meeting.
“.@realdonaIdtrump- I have spent my life as a journalist bringing the truth to light, through administrations of both parties,” Bernstein wrote on Twitter. “No taunt will diminish my commitment to that mission, which is the essential role of a free press. @CNN stands by its story, and I stand by my reporting.”
.@realdonaIdtrump– I have spent my life as a journalist bringing the truth to light, through administrations of both parties. No taunt will diminish my commitment to that mission, which is the essential role of a free press. @CNN stands by its story, and I stand by my reporting.
— Carl Bernstein (@carlbernstein) August 30, 2018
Trump earlier Wednesday ripped into Bernstein for being “sloppy” and thinking like a “degenerate fool,” which prompted CNN’s communications team to issue a tweet saying, “There may be many fools in this story but @carlbernstein is not one of them.”
[Related: Trump rekindles war against ‘totally dishonest’ media]
Make no mistake, Mr. President, CNN does not lie. We report the news. And we report when people in power tell lies. CNN stands by our reporting and our reporters. There may be many fools in this story but @carlbernstein is not one of them.
— CNN Communications (@CNNPR) August 29, 2018
The CNN report that sparked the clash was written in July by several reporters, including Bernstein. The story claimed that Trump’s former longtime lawyer Michael Cohen saw Donald Trump Jr. speaking about his June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with a Kremlin-linked lawyer to the president before it took place. Trump has denied having prior knowledge of the meeting, which has reportedly piqued the interest of special counsel Robert Mueller amid the federal Russia investigation.
The CNN report was premised on anonymous sources and included that Lanny Davis, Cohen’s attorney, declined to comment. But BuzzFeed News on Monday reported that Davis was in fact one of the unnamed sources cited in support of the story.
[CNN: ‘Make no mistake’ Trump, ‘CNN does not lie’]
Davis’ missteps with the media had ramifications for Cohen because Trump’s former fixer told congressional investigators in 2017 he had been unaware of the meeting. Shortly after Cohen pleaded guilty to eight charges before a New York federal court last week, the top two lawmakers on the Senate Intelligence Committee held a press conference to announce they had re-engaged Cohen due to concerns with his past appearance before their panel.
Cohen’s guilty pleas for tax and bank fraud, as well as campaign finance violations, emanated from a probe conducted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York. That investigation was instigated by a referral from Mueller.
