Politics

Law Professor Jonathan Turley Points Out Media Meltdown Surrounding Bill Barr And Buzzfeed Article

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Law professor Jonathan Turley said Democrats and the media went crazy over the nomination of Bill Barr as attorney general and have jumped the gun on the Buzzfeed story about President Donald Trump.

Turley said the Democratic criticism of Barr has been misplaced and accused journalists of letting their bias overtake the facts.

“It was an odd week. They started out the week by really castigating Bill Barr for a rather scholarly memorandum on the use of obstruction with regard to one possible count: the firing of James Comey. And the Democrats and the media went crazy and said ‘oh my God you’re speculating. You have you no idea what Mueller has.’ By the end of the week they jumped all over Buzzfeed and said impeachment and indictments seemed imminent,” Turley said Monday on “Fox & Friends”

BuzzFeed reported Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen told special counsel Robert Mueller’s office that the president instructed him to lie before Congress about efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. They claimed to have documents and witnesses to back up the story, but Mueller’s office issued a rare public rebuke and said the story was inaccurate.

“Buzzfeed’s description of specific statements to the Special Counsel’s Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony are not accurate,” spokesman Peter Carr said in a statement to The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Co-host Brian Kilmeade asked Turley if it would be normal for Trump to meet with Cohen prior to his testimony, Turley responded it would be legal but “moronic.”

“I think that [Rudy] Giuliani is trying to preempt the Michael Cohen testimony. People are kidding themselves if they think the Buzzfeed story is going to be 100 percent wrong,” he replied. “I think that Michael Cohen is going to Congress to incriminate the president. Now that doesn’t mean that it’s true but you can anticipate that he’s going to bring details including this one. That dealings and discussions may have continued much later than we currently think. So I think that Giuliani was trying to preempt that story.”

“Where I think Giuliani is wrong is that when he says there’s nothing wrong with the president talking to Cohen. Legally that’s true. Cohen was his attorney and he was talking to him about that. But tactically it would have been moronic that … and I blame really his counsel on this,” Turley continued. “The president should not have been sitting down with his lawyer to talk about testimony affecting him in front of Congress. It’s begging for this type of allegation.”

Turley said he thinks Cohen is on a mission to hurt Trump but claimed Democrats will need much more if they want to make any charges stick.

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