If ending shutdown truly is Dems' ‘top priority,’ they should take Trump’s offer: Guy Benson

If House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, and congressional Democrats continue to play hardball during the partial government shutdown -- as President Donald Trump and the GOP continue to propose compromise deals in order to get funding for the border wall -- they themselves may face the consequences, Townhall.com political editor Guy Benson argued Wednesday.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., will be bringing two competing bills for a vote Thursday in hopes at least one of them passes to reopen the government. The GOP-proposed bill would provide $5.7 billion for the wall in exchange for a three-year extended protection for DACA recipients, disaster relief, and a renewal of the Violence Against Women Act. (DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, is an Obama-era program for helping adults who arrived in the U.S. illegally as children avoid deportation.)
On Wednesday’s All-Star panel on "Special Report," Benson -- along with Federalist senior editor Mollie Hemingway and Washington Post opinion writer Charles Lane -- weighed in on whether a compromise bill could get passed and who would take responsibility if it fails.
Benson began by complimenting McConnell’s ability at “reframing an argument” to the American people.
“The Democrats say over and over again that their priority is reopening the government and getting these federal workers paid. If that were truly their top priority, they would be seriously engaging this proposal from the president, which I think is completely reasonable from the weekend, trying to improve it, making changes to it, negotiating around the clock and they’re doing nothing like that whatsoever,” Benson told the panel. “And at some point, I think the Democrats have to answer for that because they say out of one side of their mouth, ‘We have to get these people paid. It’s an ongoing tragedy for these families,’ and yet they will not negotiate anything, including some of these provisions that the president has made that are concessions like putting major elements in the bill from Sen. Dick Durbin that he introduced in late 2016. So McConnell is trying to make some lemonade out of lemons.”
Lane expressed that “any movement” from the legislative branch on border security would have to come from the Senate because the Dem-controlled House may be at the mercy of the leftwing members who seem to have the “upper hand.”
Meanwhile, Hemingway expressed that McConnell is “taking matters into his own hands,” calling his bill “ridiculously generous” to Democrats, insisting that $5 billion for the wall isn’t a lot of money in exchange for protection for DACA recipients.
“The only reason why it might be a problem for Nancy Pelosi is her own talking point is ‘We want to reopen the government.’ Well, as Guy said, you have to act like you’re serious about that if you really want to do it. If you’re not offering anything, not putting anything on the table, not putting forth any realistic compromise and not accepting any of these generous offers, it hurts your own talking point,” Hemingway told the panel.

Sarah Sanders: White House not listening to Ocasio-Cortez 'on much of anything,' including doomsday prediction

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders derided New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's recent claim that the world will end in 12 years due to climate change, and suggested the Trump administration has little need for the progressive firebrand's thoughts in general, in an exclusive, wide-ranging interview Tuesday night with Fox News' "Hannity."
Sanders also slammed what she called the "disgraceful" media coverage of the previous week, which included a discredited BuzzFeed News report on the Russia investigation and a social media harassment campaign against pro-Trump Catholic high school students -- based largely on incomplete and selectively edited videos of their encounter with a Native American man and other activists shouting homophobic slurs.
"I don't think we're going to listen to [Ocasio-Cortez] on much of anything -- particularly not on matters we're gonna leave in the hands of a much, much higher authority -- and certainly, not listen to the freshman congresswoman on when the world may end," Sanders said.
Speaking at an event commemorating Martin Luther King Day on Monday, Ocasio-Cortez asserted that climate change constituted "our World War II" and added: “Millennials and people, you know, Gen Z and all these folks that will come after us are looking up and we’re like: ‘The world is gonna end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change and your biggest issue is, how are we gonna pay for it?'"

A protestor leads a Native American prayer with a traditional drum outside the Catholic Diocese of Covington Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2019, in Covington, Ky. The diocese in Kentucky has apologized after selectively edited videos emerged showing students from Covington Catholic High School seeming to mock Native Americans outside the Lincoln Memorial on Friday after a pro-life rally in Washington. Later, unedited videos showed the students themselves were harassed and approached by other activists. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

A United Nations report on climate change warned late last year that the world will face several consequences from climate change – extreme drought, food shortages and deadly flooding – unless there’s an “unprecedented” effort made to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
Then, in November, the Trump administration released a federal report that found that the impacts of climate change are being felt across the country, and “extreme weather and climate-related events” are going to worsen in the years to come -- with a significant possible impact on the economy by the end of the century.
Some conservative commentators have argued that most proposed solutions would do more harm than good, and also have accused climate activists of crying wolf. In 2006, a NASA scientist and leading global warming researcher declared that the world had only 10 years to avert a climate catastrophe. Meantime, President Trump repeatedly has cast doubt on the risks posed by global warming, despite the report from his administration.
‘‘Large parts of the Country are suffering from tremendous amounts of snow and near record setting cold," Trump tweeted on Sunday. "Amazing how big this system is. Wouldn’t be bad to have a little of that good old fashioned Global Warming right now!’’
In 2012, Trump famously wrote: "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive."
Now, Sanders said, the attention should be on pressing matters like the ongoing partial federal government shutdown over funding for Trump's proposed border wall.
CRITIC: MEDIA TREATMENT OF COVINGTON CATHOLIC KIDS 'WAY WORSE' THAN KAVANAUGH EPISODE
"We're focused on what's happening in the world right now," Sanders told host Sean Hannity. "We wish that Democrats like herself would engage in that conversation, help us fix some of the current problems we know exist, and work with us to get some things done -- particularly on the border, fixing the national and humanitarian crisis."
Sanders added, in an apparent reference to God: "That's the kind of stuff we're focused on, not things we're gonna leave up to the hands of something and someone much more powerful than any of us."

A man places a sign showing support for the students of Covington Catholic Catholic High School in front of the Catholic Diocese of Covington in Covington, Ky., Tuesday, Jan 22, 2019. (AP Photo/Bryan Woolston)

The president himself seemingly has little patience for Ocasio-Cortez. Asked last week outside the White House for his response to Ocasio-Cortez's claim that there is "no question" he's a racist, Trump responded simply: "Who cares?"
Separately, Sanders said it was "a sad day in America" when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., preemptively rejected Trump's compromise proposal to end the partial federal shutdown. The White House offered various immigration-related concessions to Democrats in exchange for border wall funding.
"Republicans have been in lock-step with the president, because we actually believe in getting something done," Sanders said. "[Democrats] are not looking to solve problems, but they're simply looking to kick the can down the road."
KENTUCKY HIGH SCHOOL CLOSED AFTER DEATH THREATS DIRECTED AT STUDENTS IN VIRAL VIDEO 
Sanders added, "The president is a leader, and Nancy Pelosi is nothing more than an obstructionist."
The White House press secretary said Pelosi's security concerns about the upcoming planned Jan. 29 State of the Union address were unfounded, and that the White House was "moving forward" with plans for the address in Congress.
"I don't know if there would be a place that all of those members would attend, but the president's focus is on speaking to the American people."
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told Fox News' "Your World with Neil Cavuto" on Tuesday that he would have no objections to Trump delivering a State of the Union address in the House of Representatives, despite Pelosi's repeated threats that the traditional speech be delayed.
"Sure," Hoyer, D-Md., responded, when asked if he'd be open to Trump speaking in person in the House for the State of the Union. Asked if Pelosi would agree, he added, "I don't know what the discussions have been."
"What happened for BuzzFeed is a great lesson for the news media. Quit trying to be first, and start trying to be right."
Sanders concluded by bashing BuzzFeed News, which authored a bombshell report alleging Trump directed his former lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress -- a report that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team dismissed as inaccurate. Sanders, like Donald Trump Jr. on Monday, said the episode was similar to the media coverage of a Catholic high school pro-life trip to Washington over the weekend.

A police car sits at the entrance to Covington Catholic High School in Park Hills, Ky., Saturday, Jan 19, 2019. The school has been besieged by threats of violence and was closed for safety reasons on Tuesday, after viral videos misrepresented the actions of its students at a pro-life march.  (AP Photo/Bryan Woolston)

The Covington High School students stood near the Lincoln Memorial as activists identified as Black Hebrew Israelites shouted homophobic slurs at them, and a Native American man approached them banging a drum. Initial videos of the episode suggested that the students were harassing the man.
Many liberal and conservative commentators criticized the students -- and, in some cases, called for them to be personally harassed and their school closed -- based on initial, incomplete videos, only to walk back their comments after a fuller video showed that the students themselves had been harassed, and that the students did not appear to approach the Native American man or the activists at any point.
"I've never seen so many people so happy to destroy a kid's life," Sanders said, referring to the social media response to the episode -- which included multiple death threats and verbal intimidation directed at the students.
Covington High School Principal Robert Rowe announced Tuesday that the school was closed for the day due to safety concerns.

White House announces 51 judicial picks, including two for liberal Ninth Circuit

The White House on Tuesday announced the re-nomination of 51 federal judicial nominees left over from the previous Congress, kickstarting the administration's effort to install more conservative judges after GOP activists worried that such appointments had stalled.
Nine of the 51 appointments are for spots on prestigious and influential federal appellate benches, including two on the mostly liberal San Francisco-based Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which President Trump has often derided as "disgraceful" and politically biased.
Neomi Rao, the president's "regulatory czar," who would take now-Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh's vacated seat on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, is on the list.  Case Western University School of Law professor and Washington Post commentator Jonathan H. Adler wrote when Rao first joined the administration that "Trump's selection of Rao suggests the administration is serious about regulatory reform, not merely reducing high-profile regulatory burdens."
Also on the roll was Brian Buescher, for a seat as United States district judge for the District of Nebraska. In December, Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, raised concerns about the Omaha-based lawyer's membership in the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic service organization -- prompting legal commentators to suggest the Democrats were engaging in religious discrimination.
“The Knights of Columbus has taken a number of extreme positions,” Hirono said in a questionnaire sent to Buescher. “For example, it was reportedly one of the top contributors to California’s Proposition 8 campaign to ban same-sex marriage.”
Harris, in her questions to the nominee, called the Knights of Columbus “an all-male society” and asked the Nebraska lawyer if he was aware that the group was anti-abortion and opposed to same-sex marriage when he joined.
The California senator and 2020 presidential hopeful also referenced Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson’s statement that abortion amounted to “the killing of the innocent on a massive scale” and asked Buescher if he agreed with the statement.
In his response, Buescher argued that the Knights of Columbus’ official positions on issues do not represent every one of the group’s members and said he would recuse himself from hearing cases where he saw a conflict of interest.
“The Knights of Columbus does not have the authority to take personal political positions on behalf of all of its approximately two million members,” Buescher wrote. “If confirmed, I will apply all provisions of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges regarding recusal and disqualification.”

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has long drawn the ire of President Trump, who has called it "disgraceful." (AP)

In an op-ed this week in The Washington Post entitled "Anti-Catholic bigotry is alive in the U.S. Senate," columnist  Michael Gerson wrote that questions like the ones from Harris and Hirono were inappropriate and "scare the hell out of vast sections of the country."
Missing from the list were three conservative judges the White House has said it will install on the Ninth Circuit without seeking what's known as a blue slip," or an opinion, from California senators.
In a snub to California Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Harris, the White House announced in October Trump had nominated Patrick Bumatay, Daniel Collins and Kenneth Kiyul Lee (all from the Golden State, and reportedly all members of the conservative Federalist Society) to the traditionally liberal Ninth Circuit. The court, with a sprawling purview representing nine Western states, has long been a thorn in the side of the Trump White House, with rulings against the travel ban and limits on funding to "sanctuary cities."
TRUMP SLAMS 'DISGRACEFUL' NINTH CIRCUIT, SUGGESTS THEY WOULD OVERTURN HIS TURKEY PARDON IF THEY COULD
The Judicial Crisis Network announced in a statement it would launch a $1.5 million national advertising campaign on both television and the Internet calling on Democrats to support the judges, and noting that there are an "unprecedented 163 judicial vacancies in the federal court system."
“Because of Democrats’ unprecedented obstruction of judicial nominees, we now have significantly more vacancies than when President Trump took office," Judicial Crisis Network Chief Counsel and Policy Director Carrie Severino said in a statement.
"Senator McConnell has restated his commitment to filling the vacancies and has maintained that this is a Senate priority. It’s time for Democrats to end the bullying and smear campaigns and confirm the judges," Severino added.
The nominations seemed poised to quiet growing conservative unrest about the relative lack of news on appointments during the ongoing partial federal government shutdown, which commenced Dec. 22. Six new appointments to federal district courts, which are effectively trial courts, were announced by the White House last week.
“People are starting to scratch their heads and wonder, ‘When are we going to start up again?" one source close to the White House told Politico earlier this month.
The White House, along with Senate GOP leaders, has made appointing conservative judges and justices a key priority. Under the Trump administration, 85 federal judges have been installed, including Associate Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, and 30 appellate judges.
Senate Democrats previously eliminated the filibuster for federal judicial nominees below the Supreme Court level during the Obama administration, meaning that each of the 51 nominees needs only a majority vote in the Senate to win confirmation.
Once they claimed their current Senate majority, Republicans, in response, eliminated the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees as well.

Global Warming Cartoons

Ocasio-Cortez calls climate change ‘our World War II,’ warns the world will end in 12 years

Praying Mantis

Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez asking 2014 Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai a question at the Kennedy School's Institute of Politics at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass.  (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., spoke out on Monday about the urgency to take on climate change, comparing it to World War II.
Speaking at an event commemorating Martin Luther King Day, Ocasio-Cortez expressed how the issue of climate change is a “generational” issue that younger people are more focused on.
“Millennials and people, you know, Gen Z and all these folks that will come after us are looking up and we’re like: ‘The world is gonna end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change and your biggest issue is how are we gonna pay for it?'" Ocasio-Cortez said.
The Democratic Socialist said the fight against climate change is war and that it’s “our World War II.”
In November, the White House released a federal report that found that the impacts of climate change are being felt across the country, and “extreme weather and climate-related events” are going to worsen in the years to come -- with a significant impact on the economy.
The National Climate Assessment finds that extreme weather disasters “ have already become more frequent, intense, widespread or of long duration and have cost the the U.S. nearly $400 billion since 2015.”
Ocasio-Cortez has made waves ever since she won the upset victory in New York against incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley, who was a top Democrat in Congress at the time. She is now the outspoken advocate of the Green New Deal, which is meant to address economic inequality and climate change.

Trump defends Covington Catholic HS students, says media ‘smeared’ them

President Trump has taken to Twitter to publicly defend Covington Catholic student Nick Sandmann and his classmates — saying they were “smeared” by the media — following their now-viral confrontation with Native American activists in Washington.
“Looking like Nick Sandman [sic] & Covington Catholic students were treated unfairly with early judgements proving out to be false,” Trump tweeted. “Not good, but making big comeback!”
The president went on to quote Fox News host Tucker Carlson, saying: “New footage shows that media was wrong about teen’s encounter with Native American.”
Video shows tension between Native Americans, high school students before viral clip
Trump’s comments come just one day after additional video emerged showing the Covington Catholic students being accosted and yelled at before their widely reported showdown with the Native American activists.
Another group of demonstrators — who called themselves members of the Black Hebrew Israelites group — can be heard taunting and shouting hateful things at the teens for no apparent reason other than the fact that they’re wearing “Make America Great Again” hats.
When video first emerged of the incident though, the Black Israelites could not be seen or heard.
“Smeared by media,” Trump tweeted, referencing the widespread reports that made the rounds Friday and Saturday, accusing Sandmann and his classmates of taunting and disrespecting the activists.
The teen later claimed in a statement that he was simply trying to defuse the situation, nothing more.

Former top FBI lawyer personally involved in FISA warrant for Trump aide, other Russia probe irregularities, transcript shows

A former top FBI lawyer acknowledged he was personally involved in the warrant application to surveil then-Trump campaign aide Carter Page and confirmed other "unusual" steps taken in the FBI’s Russia probe in 2016, during a closed-door congressional interview.
“I was aware of the [Russia] investigation,” James Baker told House investigators in October. Fox News has confirmed details of the transcript which is still under government review before its public release.
Baker said he was briefed on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant “as time went by” and recalled how he got involved early in the process. The warrant relied heavily on the unverified anti-Trump dossier, which was financed by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign via the law firm Perkins Coie.
“I don't want to see it at the end, like when it is about to go to the director [for] certification, because then it is hard to make changes then," Baker told House investigators when Republicans controlled the chamber. "So I wanted to see it when it was gelled enough but before it went through the process and before it went to the director. I wanted to see it and I wanted to read it because I knew it was sensitive."
Fox News confirmed the Baker transcript also includes the following exchange with investigators regarding his involvement in the surveillance application:
Question: "So that is why you took the abnormal or unusual step in this particular situation because it was sensitive?"
Baker: "Yes."
Question: "So you actually got involved because you want to make sure that, what?"
Baker: "I wanted to make sure that we were filing something that would adhere to the law and stand up over time."
Baker also told lawmakers, as part of the joint investigations by the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees, that it was not routine for him to get involved personally in such matters.
"I did not ... at that point in time when I was at the FBI ... almost all of the FISA applications did not go through me," he said.
Fox News first reported last fall that Baker said his contact with a top lawyer working with the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign in late 2016 -- as federal investigators prepared the surveillance warrant -- also was unusual.
Baker said Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussmann initiated contact with him and provided documents, describing the contact with the private lawyer as unusual and the “only time it happened.”
Perkins Coie was a key player in the funding of the controversial anti-Trump dossier, which Republicans have long suspected helped fuel the FBI’s investigation. The DNC and Clinton campaign had hired opposition research firm Fusion GPS in April 2016, through Perkins Coie, to dig into Trump’s background. Fusion, in turn, paid British ex-spy Christopher Steele to compile the dossier, memos from which were shared with the FBI in the summer of 2016.
Asked about Baker’s statements in October, however, a Perkins Coie spokesperson said Sussmann’s contact was not connected to the firm’s representation of the DNC or Clinton campaign.
The spokesperson said in a statement: “Prior to joining Perkins Coie, Michael Sussmann served as a cybercrime prosecutor in the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice during both Republican and Democratic administrations. As a result, Sussmann is regularly retained by clients with complex cybersecurity matters.
“When Sussmann met with Mr. Baker on behalf of a client, the meeting was not connected to the firm’s representation of the Hillary Clinton Campaign, the DNC or any Political Law Group client.”
Since then, Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., formally requested further information from the FBI about the contact. Further, conservative watchdog Judicial Watch launched a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in December against "the Department of Justice seeking records of all meetings in 2016 between former FBI General Counsel James Baker and the Perkins Coie law firm."
Fox News reached out to representatives for Baker and Perkins Coie to provide additional comment or context. The Epoch Times earlier reported some details from the Baker transcript.

Donald Trump Jr. compares Buzzfeed coverage to Catholic HS confrontation, says Schiff leaking

Donald Trump Jr., in an exclusive interview Monday night with Fox News' "The Ingraham Angle," again accused House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff of orchestrating a series of inaccurate leaks aiming to damage the White House, saying there is a "99.9 percent chance he's the guy that was leaking my testimony as I was testifying" in 2017.
Trump Jr. also compared Thursday's discredited BuzzFeed article, which alleged that President Trump directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress, to the media coverage this weekend surrounding a widely documented encounter near the Lincoln Memorial involving several pro-Trump Catholic high school students, black activists shouting homophobic slurs, and a Native American man.
"You had some Catholic schoolboys that were at a right-to-life march, okay? They were wearing a MAGA hat," Trump Jr. said. "They had to pounce because the media wants that to be true. They want a bunch of nice, Catholic kids -- happen to be white -- they want them to be the enemy."
Many liberal and conservative commentators criticized the students -- and, in some cases, called for them to be personally harassed and their school closed -- based on initial, incomplete videos of the encounter,  only to walk back their comments after a fuller video showed that the students themselves had been harassed, and that the students did not appear to approach the Native American man or the activists at any point.
BUZZFEED REPORTER UNABLE TO EXPLAIN KEY DISCREPENCY IN POST-ARTICLE STATEMENTS; CNN ANCHOR RIPS BUZZFEED'S 'DERELICTION OF DUTY'
And after the BuzzFeed article was published, some commentators and top Democrats said it raised the possibility the president should be impeached if it were accurate.
"They need it to be true, Laura," Trump Jr. added. "They've been pushing this nonsense for two years. They've found nothing. ... If you're not sure it's true, don't push it for 14 hours straight."
He continued: "This isn't the first time that happened. You saw it right after I did my testimony, and they said, 'Oh, Donald Trump Jr. had the Wikileaks information,' because presumably, Adam Schiff leaked it right after my testimony to them, and conveniently took out the one before the four, turning the 14th into the 4th, meaning I had it six days before the world saw it, as opposed to four days after the entire world saw it."
In late 2017, CNN senior congressional correspondent Manu Raju reported that Trump Jr. had received early, private access to Wikileaks documents -- a story that turned out to be entirely false.
BuzzFeed News investigative reporters Anthony Cormier and Jason Leopold authored the discredited report on Thursday, citing two law enforcement officials who said Michael Cohen had acknowledged to Special Counsel Mueller’s office that President Trump told him to lie to Congress about a potential real-estate deal in Moscow, and claim that the negotiations ended months before they did so as to conceal Trump’s involvement.

BuzzFeed News has come under fire for its sourcing and reliability, after its bombshell report Thursday purporting to demonstrate that President Trump directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress was denied in an unusual statement from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office. (REUTERS/Brendan McDermid)

The article claimed that "internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents" confirmed Trump's instruction to Cohen. But Mueller issued his first public statement in more than a year to repudiate the BuzzFeed report just one day later, asserting in a brief statement that BuzzFeed's story was "not accurate."
The Washington Post has since reported that Mueller intended his rare denial to mean that the story was "almost entirely incorrect," and that the special counsel's office immediately "reviewed evidence to determine if there were any documents or witness interviews like those described, reaching out to those they thought might have a stake in the case. They found none."
And Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani told Fox News on Monday that his team communicated with Mueller's office last week about the BuzzFeed article -- and agreed a significant portion of it was false.

"They've been pushing this nonsense for two years. They've found nothing."
— Donald Trump Jr.

"There are no texts and emails or other documents to corroborate BuzzFeed's claim for the simple reason that it is not true," Giuliani told Fox News. "Whoever is responsible for this is lying." He added: "We commend them for standing up for the truth," referring to Mueller’s team.
Leopold has been involved in numerous scandals during his career related to his false reports, including one in 2002 for Salon.com about Enron that the outlet said was "riddled with inaccuracies and misrepresentations," and another incorrect story in 2006 for Truthout.org about supposedly pending indictments against former George W. Bush aide Karl Rove.
In an interview with CNN on Sunday, Cormier declined to explain why Leopold had claimed to have seen the documents proving that Trump had ordered Cohen to lie to Congress -- contradicting Cormier's insistence in a separate post-article interview on Friday that he had not personally seen the documents.
"We can't get into, like, the details there," Cormier, sitting next to BuzzFeed News Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith, told CNN's "Reliable Sources" host Brian Stelter. "We really can't go any further at all, in order not to jeopardize our sources."
Leopold did not appear for the interview, which occasionally became tense as Stelter openly criticized BuzzFeed's journalistic practices. Smith claimed Leopold, who has been out of the public view since Friday, was busy "reporting."
In an interview on Friday, Cormier told CNN, “No, I’ve not seen it personally,” when asked if he had seen the documents mentioned in the story that purportedly showed Trump told Cohen to lie.
Cormier only claimed that the two sources he cited were “fully, 100 percent read-in to that aspect of the special counsel’s investigation.”
However, Leopold, speaking separately to MSNBC, remarked that, "I don’t think we’ve said we haven’t seen [the documents]" and clarified, "I’ll say we’ve seen documents and been briefed."

FILE - In this June 21, 2017, file photo, special counsel Robert Mueller departs Capitol Hill following a closed door meeting. Mueller's office issued its first public statement in well over a year on Friday, to discredit a BuzzFeed report on its Russia probe. (AP)

Leopold later suggested that he meant to say that he has seen the documents, but that Cormier has not, telling Mediaite, "Yes. Anthony said HE had not personally seen the documents.”
Cormier added in the interview with Stelter on Sunday: "I have further confirmation that this is right. We are being told to stand our ground … The same sources that we used in that story are standing behind it, as are we.”
But Smith and Cormier also acknowledged they were not aware of the precise language Trump would have used in instructing Cohen to lie. Stelter, in the interview, also slammed Leopold's terse request for comment to Mueller's office, sent just hours before the article was published, as a "dereliction of duty" by the publication.
President Trump has called BuzzFeed's decision to publish the discredited article "disgraceful," and Vice President Mike Pence charged on Sunday that the media was "obsessed" with taking down Trump.
"It was remarkable what we saw happening for 24 hours in the media, on the basis of the report that appeared in BuzzFeed," Pence told "Fox News Sunday" anchor Chris Wallace. "It's one of the reasons why people are so frustrated with many in the national media."