White House counselor Kellyanne Conway confronted CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Thursday night for failing to cover a major development regarding the infamous Steele dossier, one that raises significant questions about the document’s veracity.
During a contentious interview, Conway asked Cuomo why he and CNN have not covered statements recently made about the dossier by Lanny Davis, the Clinton-connected attorney working for former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen.
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Davis, an unyielding critic of President Donald Trump, said in three separate interviews that the dossier’s allegations about Cohen, including that he went to Prague in August 2016 to scheme with Russians, are “100 percent” false.
“Thirteen references to Mr. Cohen are false in the dossier, but he has never been to Prague in his life,” Davis said on Bloomberg.
“Never, never in Prague. Did I make that? Never, never, ever. Ever,” he told MSNBC’s Chuck Todd. (RELATED: Lanny Davis: Michael Cohen Did Not Go To Prague, As Dossier Claims)
Conway asked Cuomo about his own network’s lack of coverage of Davis’ bombshell statements.
“Why aren’t you leading into the dossier? Some of your colleagues won awards for the dossier,” Conway said at one point in the interview.
“We talk about the dossier all the time,” Cuomo replied, failing to note that much of CNN’s coverage of the dossier is aimed at bolstering the dossier.
“Go ahead, let’s talk about it tonight because last night Michael Cohen’s attorney Lanny Davis made very clear to your colleague and many other appearances yesterday that there are at least 13, 14, 15 falsehoods about Michael Cohen in the dossier, including the fact that they say he’s never been to Prague in his life,” said Conway.
Cuomo responded, but not to Davis’ statements. Instead, he accused Conway of covering for Cohen, who pleaded guilty on Tuesday to tax evasion, bank fraud and excessive campaign contributions. Cohen acknowledged that he made hush payments to two women on behalf of Trump prior to the 2016 election.
“Right. You’re defending Michael Cohen?” he asked.
CNN is not alone in ignoring Davis’ statements about the dossier. No major news outlets, including BuzzFeed News, which published the dossier on Jan. 10, 2017, have written stories about Davis’ comments.
CNN itself played a key role in the public release of the dossier. BuzzFeed released the report just hours after CNN reported that then FBI Director James Comey briefed then President-elect Trump on the salacious allegations in the dossier.
In notes that Comey took on Jan. 28, 2017 following a meeting with Trump, Comey wrote that pressure from CNN is what prompted him to brief Trump on the dossier.
“I also explained that one of the reasons we told him was that the media, CNN in particular, was telling us they were about to run with it,” Comey wrote.
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