The media is using a sneaky trick to obfuscate who is serving as the “anonymous sources” in their reporting.

On Monday, Michael Cohen’s attorney Lanny Davis admitted to BuzzFeed News that he was one of the anonymous sources cited in CNN’s reckless reporting on the 2016 Trump Tower meeting. (RELATED: CNN Still Stands By Trump Tower Story Despite Lanny Davis Admitting He Lied To Them)

In addition to debunking key parts of CNN’s reporting, Davis also inadvertently revealed how CNN duped its readers into believing Davis wasn’t a source for the story.

While Davis served as an anonymous source, CNN also allowed him to decline a comment on the record. This leads readers to believe that the only communication CNN had with Davis was for him to refuse to comment on the story — even though he was one of the sources feeding CNN the story in the first place.

Politico reporter Marc Caputo explained the duplicitous nature of such an arrangement.

Lanny Davis said he was a source who lied to CNN. That’s on him. But CNN in the story in question wrote “one of Cohen’s attorneys, Lanny Davis, declined to comment.” That means CNN might have misled readers about talking to Davis. Thats a bigger problem than a source-burn https://t.co/l7BXtzHU6m — Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) August 28, 2018

There are possible (though perhaps flimsy) explanations about what happened. Davis obviously has an honesty problem. But CNN now needs to explain how it did NOT mislead its audience in suggesting Davis didn’t speak to them when, in fact, he apparently did. — Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) August 28, 2018

Other reporters sounded off on the “remarkable” development in the story.

Plus this remarkable note from @BuzzFeedNews’ @perlberg: “The original CNN story — broadcast during Chris Cuomo’s prime-time show and written by Jim Sciutto, Marshall Cohen, and Watergate reporting legend Carl Bernstein — said that Davis had “declined to comment.’” — Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) August 28, 2018

Wait. He was both an anonymous source and he “declined to comment”? …. — Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) August 28, 2018

Amazingly so. Here’s the line in the CNN story in which Davis now admits he was an anonymous source: “Contacted by CNN, one of Cohen’s attorneys, Lanny Davis, declined to comment.”https://t.co/zAHaerunDB pic.twitter.com/rBfNlBNogU — Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) August 28, 2018

The Washington Post made the same tricky move in their “confirmation” of CNN’s July 27 report, telling readers that Davis “declined comment” despite later admitting that Davis had confirmed the story on background.

In their July 27 story “confirming” the CNN story, WaPo said that Davis declined comment. But in their clean-up piece out tonight, WaPo acknowledges that Davis was the anonymous source cited as a “person familiar with Cohen’s thinking.” pic.twitter.com/dGw2fXAy2N — Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) August 26, 2018

To WaPo’s credit, they covered Davis’ backtracking on the Trump Tower story. CNN has yet to update their original reporting or write a separate article covering Davis’ many contradictory claims.

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