What If Trump Told Cohen To Lie To Congress?

This "emergency installment" of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast discusses the "bombshell" BuzzFeed News report that “President Donald Trump directed his longtime attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.” 

This report hit the headlines in the US and beyond. Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office has now cast doubt over the BuzzFeed report; issuing a statement that referred to it as "not accurate".  

Actual accuracy and the professional competency of the BuzzFeed reporters and editors involved in the compilation of the report is being debated widely in the US media; FiveThirtyEight's podcast is a good example of these debates, because it pins down essential points. 

As the Mueller investigation closes in on Donald Trump's inner circle, the big question is whether there is direct evidence linking Trump to the case of collusion with Russia. Is this BuzzFeed report the one establishing the link? Some of FiveThirtyEight's contributors think so; yet others want more clarity and hard evidence. 

While FiveThirtyEight's team debates whether the BuzzFeed report is reliable, contributor Amelia Thomson-Deveaux also discusses what further information is required to support the allegations.

FiveThirtyEight is a website that focuses on opinion poll analysis, and a blog created by analyst and statistician Nate Silver. It is ironic that while Trump seems not to shy away from "bending the truth", and while there is an abundance of "fake news" generated by trolls, journalists strive for excellence in their profession, and to be watertight against anyone questioning their professionalism. The Trump era seems to have raised the quality bar for good reporting—at least one positive outcome of this presidency.