jason leopold one of the authors of this buzz feed article has a history of fabricating sources back in two thousand and two he had an article retracted on salon dot com alleging that thomas white who was then secretary of the army attempted to cover up massive losses of the energy giant enron while he was an executive there and in two thousand and six leopold reported that a senior adviser and karl rove then president bush told the president and a number of other officials that he was going to be indicted in the case of the former cia agent valerie plame rove was never indicted and the story fell apart as just a small sample in a long career of this kind of chicanery regarding the cohen story today leopold told m s n b c that he had actually seen the evidence showing that trump instructed michael cohen to lie to congress and is a total contradiction to what leopold wrote in the article and what it's. co-author has publicly said. i don't. remember but i will say that i'm very confident that your colleagues said on c.n.n. this morning that you were briefed on these documents i'll just

i want to drill down on one of the offers in this piece jason leopold.ou heard what we played earlier, that he is confident, this bombshell, bombshell report was from buzzfeed who stood by him. jason is one of the best journalist in the world and he has proven it. buzzfeed news, stands by this story 100%. you probably want to walk that back down to. buzzfeed wish casting so hard on this story, but before coming out with that statement, they should have checked into his troubled past of making up sources. it goes all the way back to the bush administration in his word then, his problems were so bad, even in the journalism review recognized and respected and wants to accuse leopold of being a fabulous, one of the targets of shoddy reporting for murder george w. bush karl rove sounded off earlier today to my colleague dana perino. >> david: jason leopold ran a story for buzzfeed said i had n indicted by a grand jury and re-created cheerful moment in the oval office in which i told president bush i was about ready to be indicted. said that i told members of

up to ten million people died under the regime of king leopold ii, and early photographs of atrocitiest international human rights campaign. it hastened the end of king leopold's rule, but his personal colony, which had made him rich, was handed over to belgium in 1908, only for exploitation and brutality to continue. it was the belgian congo until 1960, even though there was little free about it for the congolese. with independence came retribution, and a great white flight from the country. many belgians left. the congolese were handed a place rich with natural resources, but without the knowledge and training to use them. such was the colonial style, that few people were qualified doctors, academics or tested leaders. the country was cast adrift. the rainforest is perhaps the congo's most precious asset. the largest outside the amazon, and a valuable sink for the carbon dioxide that's warming our planet. a demand for charcoal means it's going up in smoke. a solution to that is being explored in a nature reserve on a remote bank of the congo river. yangambi was the world's largest tr

stories about jason leopold's credibility. the minute mueller said what they said. nobody stuck with their guns. they made it clear it was a mistake. and they have been talking about nothing since. they have been throwing themselves under the bus since friday night. but let's not confuse "buzzfeed" making a mistake. the irony of bob mueller giving a citation. emily: we can go to the story from cnn. the russia stories the media has gotten wrong. howie: they always make the president look worse. "buzzfeed" in 2017, they published the unverified steel dossier. they couldn't vouch for it. your final thought on "buzzfeed"'s role in this mess and the rest of the media. emily: "buzzfeed" has a lot of talented people. they have a serious news division. but they have demonstrated they can't exactly handle it. but at the same time there are serious networks that are older and more traditional than "buzzfeed." the media in general has a problem. it's not confined to "buzzfeed." i will be curious to see if they concede. howie: i think we all come out against breathlessness. emi

leopold owned it personally and he undertook a massive violent extraction of rubber for the needs of american european auto industry that led to the deaths of 10 million congolese people. fast forward again to world war one as we deepen our dependence on this country of congo, when the war begins, massive increased in the production of weapons systems, the mineral that is in, it was in every weapon system at the time was copper. in fact someone wrote at the time you can not kill people in large numbers without copper, and largest naturally occurring deputy of the world of course congo, so the race was on, again , to loot the resources, to feed the military industrial complex that was driving war in europe. fast forward to world war ii. albert pujols einstein writes a letter to fdr and says nazis are going to win this race for the technology to build anatomic bomb. we have to secure you, you have to secure the you're uranium, because if they get it they will build a bomb first with consequences for the world, world war ii and so this alarm bell set off what we all know about, the manh

so it is just from king leopold. it is not to rely on just hope. but the reality but hope. and hopes can join activists. i a picture that because i am extremely y optimistic and i would like my fellows here to optimistic. yes your parents did not know that my ancestors and my countrymen they were making technological advancements that king leopold is responsible for the killing of tens of millions of the congolese people at the time. so out of that hope, i have a coalition of six human rights groups on the ground. . . . . so do you hear. but honestly speaking, if you want to be intellectually correct and honest, you would not ever forget congo has been making your pride technologically speaking and within over 90% you woul would t tnot beenjoying this gadget than speak to you. [inaudible] by the way, you just told me about the universal declaration of human rights and you tell me im am equal with equal rights. join in with me. prove that i am equal. no, i think i'm going to move fairly instead of just a moving hoping for a better future, holding care my fellow american peop

jason leopold said, we have seen the documents. can you explain that to us? >> we can't get into the details. at this point because of the calls for a leak investigation and the sort of sensitivity around that matter, we can't go any further at all in order not to jeopardize our sources. we make a commitment to them. >> this is out in the culture now, ben. look what "snl" said about you last night. >> look, buzzfeed, i think it's great. we all think it's great that you want to help, but this isn't really what we need from you. y'all are buzzfeed. you do memes and lists. >> buzzfeed's reputation on the line. how do you react? >> that's a wonderful job. it's a joke they've been making for seven years. >> it's dated because buzzfeed has -- >> it's a joke we love and embrace. buzzfeed includes a very, very wide range of media, including very silly entertainment. and i think unquestionably very, very serious journalism. we've gotten people out of jail in chicago. we've changed the way sexual assault is prosecuted in the united states and we've had a series of reve

their reporting on rather they were briefed by two anonymous law enforcement officials and jason leopold that one of the authors of this buzz feed article has a history of fabricating sources regarding the cohen story today leopold told m s n b c that he had actually seen the evidence showing that trump instructed michael cohen to lie to congress and it's a total contradiction to what's written in the article and what his co-author has said i don't think that we've said that we haven't. but i will say that i'm very confident that your colleagues said on c.n.n. this morning that you were briefed on these documents we did say that we we've seen documents we've been briefed on documents we're very confident in our reporting was feed has problems all the way around not to mention the people who actually write for it the authors have real credibility problems they can't get their story straight and their sources whatever those are named an unknown which we've gotten used to in this country is being credible so maybe. this is been manufactured to give some interesting and relevance to to to th

then you have jason leopold msnbc on msnbc telling how we jaxon that we have seen the evidence. in other words the two reporter on its side, so somebody is lying here obviously. and now it's all falling apart. look, another tell as well, law enforcement officials that they are involved in an investigatio is pointed out by anthony mc carthy earlier. maybe not the russia investigation but some other investigation r. thick they can release point, w don't know who these law enforcement officials are. again, it's a matter of being first instead of accurate and treating gossip as gospel. here we are once again one of the biggest black guys we've seen in journalism and that reminds me a lot one source saying donald trump during the campaign had directed flynn to reach out to the russians. brian ross is no longer with abc . this feels a lot like that. >> over the years, and it keeps happening. is there a lesson not being learned here, or is this really so badly a lien against donald trump that they will put anything out there knowing that they will feed the beastt. >> that's the thing,

their reporting on rather they were briefed by two anonymous law enforcement officials and jason leopold that one of the authors of this buzz feed article has a history of fabricating sources regarding the cohen story today leopold told m.s.n. b c that he had actually seen the evidence showing that trump instructed michael cohen to lie to congress and it's a total contradiction to what's written in the article and what his co-author has said i don't think that we've said that we haven't met but i will say that i'm very confident that your colleague said on c.n.n. this morning that you were briefed on these documents we've been i would say that we we've seen documents we've been briefed on documents we're very confident in our report we've seen some democrats promise that they will investigate the report calling the allegations against trump quote among the most serious to date some have even gone so far as to call for president trump's impeachment so we'll have to see how this one pans out. charles over tile and political analyst charles thanks for coming on to the program now in your op

good on you for pushing on the jason leopold connection.t will be a specter hanging ovr this report. >> for sure. >> it's important that you did that with anthony. as certain as he is about his reporting and sources, i'm concerned. i think we should be a little concerned that law enforcement officials are talking to buzzfeed about the mueller investigation and what they know. putting that aside, of course this is bombshell if true. it begs a lot more questions. were the attorneys who prepped michael cohen part of white house counsel? did they know he was about to lie? that, of course, widens the fallout, collateral damage of this. just as a layperson viewer, if the negotiation had borne fruit, what would have happened then? would a tower have gone up in russia in the night and trump called it frump tower until he was out of office? this was all going to come out eventually. i don't know how long trump and his family and his organization were planning on hiding all of this, you know. or if it was just going to go away. we need to learn more.

jason leopold, the other reporter in the story said he saw the evidence is like edward snowden.him. he hasn't tweeted for three days hasn't written any tweets anyway and he isn't doing any interviews. you see -- >> tucker: may i clarify? so, always struck me as a real reporter just to be honest about it but it leopold kid has like a long history of really reckless behavior. he is the one who publicly reported and turned out to be false that karl rove had been indicted. he was fired for plagiarism. the guy is a political activist. why would you ever put someone like that on a story of this magnitude? >> precisely. and it's funny because with leopold and so many in the media, the mistakes only seem to go one way toward republicans or conservatives or trump in this case. i mean, ask yourself this question. when was the last time you saw a major media outlet make a mistake or a major error in a story about a democratic lawmaker? you know, i'm racking my brain. >> tucker: that's such a good point. >> tucker: been watching for 30 years never seen that happen not one time. will you kee

the other guy, whose name is on the story, jason leopold is a political activist with a long historyf making reckless and unfounded charges. he is the guy who reported in 2006, i believe, that karl rove had been indicted and that turned out to be false. he is not a journalist. again, he is a political activist. so, what does this tell us about the credibility of buzzfeed or any publication that would employ a guy like this to cover a story this central? >> yeah, tucker. there is also some other allegations out there about leopold, about plagiarism, this is real black eye for the media today. now, as you know, tucker, buzzfeed has been involved in a significant fake news campaign before as well where they were the first runs to run with the dossier, which really was the initiation and the flash point for this whole investigation. tucker, this isn't really a good day. you know, listen, i'm a supporter of the president. i don't think that's a big secret. but, we do need a free and fair press or some semblance of it, tucker. and even though i do my best to call out instances of militias

kennedy: leopold has been accused of shady stuff, including plaige plagiarism and. >> he has admittedith leopold, whene went to mueller office and said wire writing this story. he wrote a one sentence thing that was broad saying this is what the article was about. and only when article of written did mueller's office say, this is so far off what we believe to be true. kennedy: not accurate, but not a street name, or whether or not there was someone's name that was pu punctuated correctly, wee talking about special counsel office dispatched and dismissed article. >> they could have avoided that when they reached out for comment. >> there is no proof to these claims, these people could belying, maybe -- be lying, maybe they did talk with individuals who said this happens, where is the proof. when it comes to serious investigative journalism, i don't think of buzzfeed as that source. you were talking about how so many people said, if true. what about if false? this is damaging to media outlets. >> you have to go to social media that see what people are saying on either side. as case thei

as for the reporters who wrote the story on thursday, leopold has a checkered past, his own words by his own admission. he's broken huge stories with buzzfeed. back about 15 years ago, he was involved in scandals, accused of plagiarism and ousted from a job. he admitted he has a checkered past. now the republican committee is saying he has a history of falsz reporting. the cries get louder and louder. americans and the world want to know what happened. for now, robert mueller is not saying. >> let's talk more about this with harry litman, a district deputy. daniel, a reporter for politico. thank you for taking time to speak about this. it is important to point out the statement did not say there's nothing to the story, but rather takes a very specific response in describing it. let's talk about the statement. buzz feed's description of specific statements to the special counsel's office and characterization of testimony obtained are not accurate. so, when you see the way mueller responded here, do you get a sense they are not entirely denying the greater story that's being alleged he

anything that has jason leopold's name on it particularly when it is anonymous sources strikes me as something we should wait and make a judgment about later. >> even democrats eager to impeach the president had qualified their comment saying if the information is true which apparently it is not and we know the reason no other news organizations matched buzz feed's reporting. >> thank you very much. time for the power panel to dig into this, former chief counsel for the house judiciary democrats from the wall street journal, and jason riley and columnist at the hill buzz 6 and. thank you for being with us tonight. you know right before the show the allegations broke, as we get this rare public response from the special counsel's office saying the characterization of this is not accurate, buzz feed standing by it. >> this isn't a correction of the story, this is an annihilation of it. the reason the buzz feed story seemed to have some teeth based on what it was reporting is there was supposed to be actual evidence, documents, texts, the special counsel had to corroborate these sources

this cor cormier guy with a stkl by line with this leopold character. i can't imagine why he accepted writing a story with this other guy. big mistake. h.n, thank you, very much. >> thank you, tucker. good to see you. >> tucker: tonight's news completely up ends what we thought we were going to talk aboutd tonight and what whatever in washington has believed for 24 hours. the mueller team has been hesitant to comment on anything inat public, reporting about the investigation. fox chief national correspondent ed henry has been following this for over a year with perspective for us. >> yes, tucker, you are right. robert mueller has been accused of leaking and getting out to get the president and the witch hunt claim. his allies, some democrats v said for a long time, he doesn't comment or weight in. he's trying to be fare. for him to insert himself is extremely rare and tells you this story is one hundred percent not true. why is that a big deal? we had commentator after commentator come out today on other networks. there should be accountability as you s

leopold wasn't there. he is the dog that didn't bark.hen the dog doesn't bark, that's where the story is. he is the achilles' heel. he said this stuff. now he's not there and then brian stelter asked these guys, have you seen this? i'm not at liberty to say. that's where the story is. >> jesse: the buzzfeed guy says they leopold person is doing some other reporting. working with some other stories. >> greg: he is changed to a radiator in the bronx. >> jedediah: the guy who has been discredited a million times. he found fabricated stove. he talked about karl rove being indicted. he probably didn't see the evidence. now he's in trouble. to cover the story without looking into that guy. it's amazing. they put this story out with anonymous sources. they don't look into the back of this guys is a complete -- practically a fabrication himself. they peddle it out there and we've gone from collusion to obstruction to next it's going to be trump said -- nothing is off the table. the story is crazy. >> greg: at least he didn't put a dog on the roo

so king leopold, the belgian king at this time became the only person in this world to own a colony. all the other countries in africa, all the other territories in africa were colonized by countries. he undertook a massive extraction, a violent extraction for rubber for the needs of american that led to the death of 10 million colonies people. password world war i, as were deep in our dependence of congo. when the war begins massive increase in the production of weapon systems the mineral that was an f3 weapon system at the time was copper. and the largest naturally occurring deposit in the world is copper. so the race was on again to loot the resources to feed the military-industrial complex that was driving war in europe. fast-forward to world war ii. albert einstein writes a letter to fdr and says, nazis are going to win this race for the technology to build an atomic bomb, we have to secure the uranium deposits because if they get the uranium they are going to build a bomb first with predictable consequences for the world war ii. this alarm bell set off what we all know about th

but when buzzfeed's leopold reached out to carr, he declined to comment in part because leopold made no reference to the special counsel's office or to evidence it uncovered. joining our discussion to break it all down, national investigative reporter for "the washington post" and nbc news contributor carol leonnig. thank you guys all for being with us. carol, i want to start with you quickly. we're going to start with the buzzfeed backlash, bombshell, whatever you want to call it. but first about what rudy giuliani did say today. he made significant news in this conversation with chuck this morning, where he said among other things, that the conversations about trump tower moscow, that the president was engaged in, went all the way through 2016. previously, we only knew those conversations had taken place through june of 2016. the fact of the matter is this was on the president's mind in some form all the way until the election. why is that so important? >> i'm not entirely sure that rudy really means that he has evidence that the president -- i'm sorry, the candidate donald trump w

jason leopold, the other buzzfeed reporter who wrote the code when pease also mistakenly wrote back in 2006 that then dey chief of staff karl rove had been indicted by a grand jury, here is karl rove. sensational story and prove problematic but anything jason leopold's name on it particularly anonymous sources strikes me as something that we ought to wait and make a judgment about later. >> tracy: even democrats eager to impeach the president had qualified their comments saying, if the information is true, which apparently it is not. and finally, we now know the reason no other news organization matched buzzfeed's reporting. shannon. >> shannon: trace gallagher thank you very much. time for tonight's panel to begin chief counsel for the house judiciary julie epstein and "the wall street journal" fox news contributor jason wiley and hill, sexton, thank you for being with us tonight. thank you, shannon, thank you for having us. >> shannon: you know before the show the allegations broke and we get this very rare public response from the special counsel's office saying that characterizatio