CNN's report on Cohen alleging Trump had prior knowledge
Is this topic worth including here?
https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/26/politics ... index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/28/politics ... index.html
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news ... er-meeting
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... ae535adaad
It's important to note that one of CNN's anonymous sources - Cohen's lawyer Lanny Davis - outed himself as a source and walked back his assertions, saying "I should have done a much better job of speaking with more suspicion than certainty, and I regret my mistake" and now indicated that he simply sought to have journalists investigate the matter. However, it seems like CNN did exactly that, investigated the matter and found a second "primary source" to confirm the story before publishing.
To be clear, the second "primary source" did not confirm Trump's foreknowledge of the meeting, they only confirmed Cohen's willingness to testify about such foreknowledge (which was all the article alleged). Any number of reliable sources could back that up and it still be of questionable encyclopedic merit given that Cohen may not be a particularly reliable source himself. This all happened when Cohen was seeking a plea deal, so Cohen had an obvious incentive to have something to offer the FBI to try to secure a better deal. It sounds like Cohen was "leaking" his willingness to testify about this, presumably hoping for a plea deal that would include immunity for perjury due to his contradictory statements to congress. Then, as the Washington Post article notes, Davis had multiple weeks to backpedal after the article was published, but only did so after Cohen had pleaded guilty without any immunity, and the prospect of a better deal was therefore no longer on the table. At that point it stands to reason Cohen would have his lawyer backpedal to avoid adding lying to congress to his list of offenses. This all seems murky enough that I'm not entirely comfortable adding anything about it to the article. Thoughts?
HonorKnight (talk) 15:33, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the question and the sources. Good analysis. I agree it is too vague and too murky to say anything right now. What we have is that 1) an anonymous source claims that Cohen offered to say this, and 2) Cohen's attorney initially said this was something Cohen was willing to say (presumably as part of a proffer), but then backed down. Vague sourcing that Cohen has suggested he could say this. All too flimsy for an encyclopedia. When we reach the point that Cohen actually does say it, then we will have something worth reporting. --MelanieN (talk) 15:43, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, we kept it out of the CNN controversies article as I don’t think the claim that CNN didn’t perform due diligence has been shown. OTOH, I also don’t think it belongs here as so many folks in this soap opera keep shifting stories. O3000 (talk) 16:55, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
