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I don't offer this as news, but a hopefully valuable rumination: I hear many saying, including some with access to smart people, that Mueller's objection to the Buzzfeed News story may've been based in part on Trump issuing a directive to Cohen *via intermediary*.
Still a crime.
Still a crime.
2/ What this possibility does, at a minimum, is remind us that it's possible for the Buzzfeed News story to have inaccuracies within it yet still rightly report that Trump was part of a conspiracy to suborn perjury. It could simply be that the means used were not those described.
3/ Under *this* reading, Mueller had to limit damage to his witness (Cohen); to his agents (who Buzzfeed News implied were leaking, and if the story is inaccurate, it'd wrongly suggest they were leaking inaccurate news); and to Congress, which might initiate a probe on bad facts.
4/ This reading would also be consistent with Michael Cohen's prior court filings; with an M.O. Trump has repeatedly used before (using cutouts for crimes); with Mueller needing to correct an inaccurate story; and with Trump still being *every bit* the criminal we know him to be.
5/ What I'll say as a lawyer is that if I'd been writing that Cohen filing, I'd say "as per" or "pursuant to" if Trump has issued the directive directly, and "in accordance with" if the directive was issued *indirectly*. So I think what Ed quoted is a valuable piece of evidence.
