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Controversy and confusion continue to swirl this weekend around a story, published by BuzzFeed on Thursday, that Trump directed his lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress.

That Cohen lied to Congress is not in dispute. If he did so at Trump’s instigation, that was suborning perjury, a federal crime and potential impeachable offense. The White House, of course, is denying it. BuzzFeed says it stands by its story.

The key statement in the BuzzFeed story is:

“Now the two sources have told BuzzFeed News that Cohen also told the special counsel that after the election, the president personally instructed him to lie — by claiming the negotiations ended months earlier than they actually did — in order to obscure Trump’s involvement.”

“The two sources” refer to unnamed federal law enforcement officials. BuzzFeed added,

“The special counsel’s office 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. Cohen then acknowledged those instructions during his interviews with that office.”

Special Counsel Robert Mueller wasted no time in disavowing the latter report. In a statement issued Friday, his office called this part of the BuzzFeed report “inaccurate.” On Sunday, the Washington Post reported that BuzzFeed‘s reporter sandbagged the special counsel’s office: When he told Mueller’s spokesman, Peter Carr, that BuzzFeed was going to report that Trump told Cohen to lie to Congress, and asked for comment, Carr responded with a routine “no comment.” The reporter failed to mention that BuzzFeed would also say Mueller had evidence to back that up. The Washington Post says,

“People familiar with the matter said Carr told others in the government that he would have more vigorously discouraged the reporters from proceeding with the story had he known it would allege Cohen had told the special counsel Trump directed him to lie — or that the special counsel was said to have learned this through interviews with Trump Organization witnesses, as well as internal company emails and text messages.”

The Post also said,

“People familiar with the matter said the special counsel’s office meant the statement to be a denial of the central theses of the BuzzFeed story — particularly those that referenced what Cohen had told the special counsel, and what evidence the special counsel had gathered.”

This makes it sound like the Special Counsel’s Office is denying that Trump told Cohen to lie to Congress. The White House is trying to paint its  statement as an exoneration. The Department of Justice guidelines governing Mueller’s investigation don’t allow him to comment on matters under investigation, so Carr’s statement arguably should be interpreted as, “We didn’t tell BuzzFeed that, and we don’t have the evidence they claim we have,” because technically that’s all the Special Counsel is really allowed to say. But the Post’s reporting suggests the Special Counsel’s denial goes beyond that and is a general denial of the truth of BuzzFeed‘s claim that Trump told Cohen to lie to Congress.

Setting aside, for a moment, the accuracy of BuzzFeed‘s key allegations, BuzzFeed mishandled the story in another important way, too. It entrusted a story pregnant with huge consequences to a reporter who, by his own admission, has a “checkered” history of unreliable reporting. Even if the story is true, that casts a shadow over its credibility. I’m thinking a first-tier media organization wouldn’t stake its reputation on such a reporter for a story of this magnitude.

It’s not unusual for reporters to rely on unnamed sources for major stories. It’s often the only way to get sources with inside knowledge to talk, either because they’re not authorized to speak to the press or they want to protect their careers and families. But it’s standard journalism practice to get confirmation of such information from at least one other source, as was famously depicted in the movie “All the President’s Men” about the Washington Post’s exposure of the Watergate scandal that ended Nixon’s presidency. The Washington Post said in its Sunday story that its reporters “were unable to confirm” the BuzzFeed story’s allegations.

There’s more to the BuzzFeed story than the suborning perjury allegation against Trump. It also says Cohen tried to arrange a meeting between Trump and Putin in Moscow to “jump start” the Trump Tower negotiations, and provided “regular detailed updates” to Trump and his children Ivanka and Donald Jr., whom Trump had put in charge of the project. The significance of such a meeting was that the project couldn’t be built without Putin’s approval. The timeline of these efforts — whether they occurred during the campaign and after the election — is what Cohen lied to Congress about. To date, the project hasn’t gone forward.

If Trump suborned perjury, that’s a big deal. Perjury accusations were key grounds for the impeachment proceedings against Nixon and Clinton. On the other hand, if the BuzzFeed story falls apart under scrutiny, that will be a disaster for the news media, because it would lend credence and validation to Trump’s complaints that the media — not just BuzzFeed but the entire media — can’t be trusted and are biased against him.

But even if the BuzzFeed story isn’t true — and we still don’t know whether it is — that doesn’t make Trump a good president or mean he’s innocent. But accusations of criminal and impeachable behavior require solid proof and sober consideration. Just because Trump is a prolific liar with no respect for the rule of law, and is undeserving of the fair treatment he won’t extend to others but demands for himself, doesn’t mean we can afford to get sloppy about this. We are defending the institutions and principles of our democracy, not the partisan goals of the moment, and that requires us to adhere to the high standards of those institutions and principles, no matter how unworthy of them Trump is. If we don’t then we, too, will be contributing to their destruction.

So, don’t take BuzzFeed‘s story at face value, no matter how much you want to believe it. Democrats in Congress say they will investigate it. That’s the right approach. Absent new corroborating revelations, the rest of us should withhold judgment until then.

Editorial Note: The author of this piece has training in journalism and law, and has revised this story several times in an ongoing effort to make it as accurate as possible.