In January, BuzzFeed published perhaps the clearest accusation against President Trump in all of the reporting about the Russia investigation. Under the headline “President Trump Directed His Attorney Michael Cohen to Lie About the Moscow Tower Project,” the article, written by the BuzzFeed News senior investigative reporter Jason Leopold and his colleague Anthony Cormier, said that the President had personally instructed Cohen to lie to Congress about when negotiations on the project ended, and that the office of the special counsel, Robert Mueller, had learned about “Trump’s directive for Cohen to lie to Congress through interviews with multiple witnesses from the Trump Organization and internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents.” The story was sourced to “two federal law enforcement officials involved in an investigation of the matter.” However, once it was published, other federal officials spoke up. Mueller’s office released a rare public statement, saying that “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.” BuzzFeed, and its editor, Ben Smith, have stood by the story.

This controversy, and the underlying question of whether Trump had directed Cohen to lie, were two of the many reasons that people were anxious to hear Cohen’s public testimony on Wednesday to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. In his opening statement, Cohen claimed that “Mr. Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress. That’s not how he operates. In conversations we had during the campaign, at the same time I was actively negotiating in Russia for him, he would look me in the eye and tell me there’s no Russian business and then go on to lie to the American people by saying the same thing. In his way, he was telling me to lie.” The strong language that BuzzFeed used—which described Cohen’s earlier testimony as “the first known example of Trump telling a subordinate to lie directly about his own dealings with Russia”—appeared to conflict with Cohen’s account. At the same time, Cohen confirmed other aspects of BuzzFeed’s reporting, including that he briefed Donald Trump, Jr., and Ivanka Trump on the deal, and that, as BuzzFeed wrote, “attorneys close to the administration helped Cohen prepare his testimony and draft his statement to the Senate panel.” On Wednesday, Cohen said that “Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers reviewed and edited my statement to Congress about the timing of the Moscow Tower negotiations before I gave it.”

I recently spoke by phone with Leopold about his reporting of this story and his other work on the Trump-Russia affair. Leopold, who was previously at Vice News, is considered an expert at using Freedom of Information Act requests and was part of a team of BuzzFeed reporters who were Pulitzer Prize finalists in 2018. He has also been the subject of controversy. In 2002, Salon removed an article from its Web site after Leopold was accused of inaccuracy and plagiarism. Four years later, he incorrectly reported that Karl Rove, George W. Bush’s deputy chief of staff, had been indicted in the investigation into the outing of the C.I.A. agent Valerie Plame. (Leopold was open about past substance abuse and mental health issues in a 2006 memoir, “News Junkie.”) His work with Cormier on the Trump Tower Moscow project has advanced that story significantly, despite the controversy surrounding it. My conversation with Leopold, which has been edited for length and clarity, is below.

Do you have any evidence that what Michael Cohen said to Congress this week was incorrect or dishonest?

Was incorrect or dishonest? You know, I cannot talk about any of the evidence, documents, or anything that I have that may relate to any stories that I will be working on in the future.

So, that’s your answer for that question? You don’t feel like you can go beyond that?

I mean, I will say that I have evidence that what he said to Congress as it pertains to the story that Anthony Cormier and I wrote was correct, but whether he has anything that’s dishonest, I mean, it may relate to things that I am writing in the future. I don’t have anything to say about that.

Do you believe that what Cohen said backs up your story? It seems like you just said that.

Yes, Cohen confirmed the central thesis of our report. The President met with him before his false testimony, White House lawyers edited his false testimony before he gave it, and Cohen understood that the President was directing him to lie to Congress. [Cohen claimed that the changes were made by Trump’s personal lawyers, not White House lawyers.]

In the piece, you wrote, in what was the central thesis of your story, that this was “the first known example of Trump explicitly telling a subordinate to lie directly about his own dealings with Russia.” Was that language accurate?

So, you know, Cohen totally understood that he was being directed by Trump to lie to Congress. He did not mention how many meetings or explicit words that the President may have spoken that led him to lie. And, you know, more may come out, but Cohen himself made it clear in his testimony that he and Trump both understood this to be explicit, that he should lie to Congress. And he made it clear that it was an explicit command.

Do you think him saying “He did not directly tell me to lie” contradicts at all you writing that this was “the first known example of Trump explicitly telling a subordinate to lie?”

Those people are seizing onto Cohen’s use of the word “directly.” The President didn’t “directly tell me to lie.” That’s an adverb that characterizes the underlying instruction to lie. And Cohen says almost immediately after that that the President was telling him to lie “in his way.” So there is no longer any question about the direction Trump gave Cohen. The debate is now about how the direction was given, and a lot of people don’t want to admit that they were wrong.

And if I could just go back to the question you asked me about “explicit.” Let me just say this: Anthony and I and, obviously, BuzzFeed are standing by what our sources told us, which is not contradicted by Cohen’s testimony, and what he said is that he knew a hundred per cent what the President was telling him to do. You know, Isaac, if that is not an explicit instruction, then everything short of “Michael, please lie for me” isn’t, either. Cohen understood it to be an order, a direction, an instruction.

Cohen’s sentencing memo, which was made public in the month before your story, stated that “We address the campaign finance and false statements allegations together because both arose from Michael’s fierce loyalty to Client-1. In each case, the conduct was intended to benefit Client-1, in accordance with Client-1’s directives.” It seems like what Cohen stated to Congress last week is not really different than what was in the sentencing memo, correct?

It would seem that way, yes, you are absolutely correct.